REMINISCENCES  OF 


BY  HIS  SON  COUNT  ILYA  TOLSTOY 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


UNIVHrKSITY 

of  0a.lifornia 
b-]rkelh;y 


REMINISCENCES  OF 
TOLSTOY 


TOLSTOY— A   CHARACTERISTIC    POSE 


REMINISCENCES   OF 
TOLSTOY 

BY  HIS  SON  COUNT  ILYA  TOLSTOY 


TRANSLATED  BY 

GEORGE  CALDERON 


Illustrated  with 
Numerous  Photographs 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


Published,  October,  igi^ 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  HIS  CHIL- 
DREN, FROM  ONE  OF  MY  FATHER'S  LETTERS.  IM- 
PRESSIONS OF  EARLY  CHILDHOOD.  MY  MOTHER, 
FATHER,  GRANDMOTHER,  HANNAH,  THE  THREE 
DUNYASHAS.  LESSONS.  THE  SCHOOL  ....  3 
II  THE  HOUSEHOLD.  NIKOLAI  THE  COOK.  ALEXEY 
STEPANYTCH.  AGAFYA  MIKHAILOVNA.  MARYA 
AFANASYEVNA.      SERGEI    PETROVITCH      .      .      .     .     jg 

III  YASNAYA   POLYANA.     THE   HOUSE.     PORTRAITS   OF 

ANCESTORS.      MY    FATHER'S    STUDY 35 

IV  CHRISTMAS  TREES.     IT  'S  THE  ARCHITECT'S  FAULT. 

PROKHOR.      ANKE    PIE 54 

V  AUNT    TANYA.       UNCLE    KOSTYA.      THE    DYAKOFS. 

PRINCE    URUSOF 64 

VI     JOURNEY    TO    SAMARA 78 

VII  GAMES;    MY    FATHER'S    JOKES;    BOOKS;    LESSONS     .     96 

VIII  RIDING.     "THE  GREEN  STICK."     SKATING     ....    108 

IX     SPORT 119 

X     "ANNA   KARENINA" I34 

XI     THE   LETTER-BOX I46 

XII     SERGEI    NIKOLAYEVITCH    TOLSTOY 173 

XIII  FET,    STRAKHOF,   GAY 195 

XIV  TURGENYEF 212 

XV     GARSHIN 235 

XVI     THE    FIRST   "DARK   PEOPLE."     THE   ASSASSINATION 

OF  ALEXANDER  II.     THE  SPY 242 

XVII     THE  END  OF  THE  SEVENTIES.    THE  GREAT  CHANGE. 

THE    MAIN    ROAD 255 

XVIII     THE  MOVE  TO  MOSCOW.     SYNTAYEF.     THE  CENSUS. 

FYODOROF.      SOLOVYOF 269 

XIX     MANUAL    LABOR.      BOOT-MAKING.      HAY-MAKING      .  gSl 


5S59G5 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XX     MY   FATHER  AS   A   FATHER 303 

XXI     MY     MARRIAGE.       MY     FATHER'S     LETTERS.       vXn- 

ITCHKA.     HIS  DEATH 330 

XXII     HELP    FOR    THE    FAMINE-STRICKEN 3^ 

XXIII  MY  FATHER'S  ILLNESS  IN  THE  CRIMEA.     ATTITUDE 

TOWARDS   DEATH.     DESIRE   FOR   SUFFERING.     MY 
MOTHER'S    ILLNESS 360 

XXIV  MASHA'S  DEATH.     MY  FATHER'S  DIARY.     FAINTING 

FITS.       WEAKNESS 375 

XXV    MY  AUNT  MASHA  TOLSTOY 386 

XXVI    MY  FATHER'S  WILL.     CONCLUSION 395 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Tolstoy — A   characteristic   pose Frontispiece 

Yasnaya    Polyana 6 

The  Gates  of  Yasnaya  Polyana 6 

Tolstoy  and  His  Pupils,  Peasant  Children 15 

Tolstoy  as  a  young  man 22 

The  midday  meal 28 

Photographs  of  the  family 37 

Tolstoy's  room  on  the  ground  floor  at  Yasnaya  Polyana     .  43 

Starting  upon  a  horseback  ride  from  Yasnaya  Polyana     .     .  50 

The  village  library  and  librarian  at  Yasnaya  Polyana     .      .  59 

The  station  at   Yasnaya   Polyana 59 

Summer  at  Yasnaya  Polyana -66 

Uncle  Kostya  Islavin 72 

Stables  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 81 

Peasant  women  of  the  Yasnaya  Polyana  district   ....  87 

A  view  of  the  grounds  of  Yasnaya  Polyana 94 

Tolstoy  enjoying  a  game  of  chess 103 

At  Yasnaya  Polyana,  February,  1908 114 

The  Pond  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 114 

Pupils  of  the  common  schools  of  the  region,  guests  of  Tol- 
stoy at  Yasnaya  Polyana 123 

A  "Hunger  Group" 136 

Porthouse  mentioned  in  "Anna  Karenina" 136 

Facsimile  of  a  Tolstoy  manuscript 141 

Tolstoy  and  his  daughter,  Alexandra 150 

Mikhail,  Andre,  and  Tatyana,  Tolstoy's  daughter  .      .      .      .167 
Tolstoy,  with  the  wife  of  his  eldest  brother.  Count  Sergei 

Nikolayevitch         ....            176 

Peasant's  cottage  near  Yasnaya  Polyana 181 

A  public  well  near  Yasnaya  Polyana 181 

Tolstoy  and  Dr.  D.  L.  Nikitin  in  the  Crimea 194 

Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  Strakhof 203 

Sergei   Semyonovitch   Urusof 203 

The  day's  mail 214 

Tolstoy  and  his  grandson 223 

Tolstoy  and  his  family  in  1893 232 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A  general  view  of  Yasnaya  Polyana 245 

At  the  Pokrof  Hospital 254 

Tolstoy  among  the  peasant  children 254 

Group  of  Peasant  Girls  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 263 

A  Later  Family  Group 274 

Corn  grown  at  Yasnaya  Polyana .  283 

Harvesting  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 283 

Packing  Apples  on  Tolstoy's  Estate 290 

Sorting  the    fruit 290 

Village  near  Yasnaya  Polyana 296 

Hay-making  on   Tolstoy's   Estate 296 

Tolstoy's  Five  Sons 305 

Tolstoy  and  His  Grandchildren 311 

Tolstoy,  his  son  Lyof,  and  the  son  of  Lyof     .....  318 

Tolstoy  and  Alexandra Z^l 

Countess  Tolstoy 334 

The  last  walk  of  Tolstoy,  with  his  wife,  from  Yasnaya  Poly- 
ana to   Krekshino 340 

Tolstoy  visiting  the  women's  section  of  the  Psychiatric  Hos- 
pital at  Pokrof 349 

Among   the    patients    and    doctors    at    the    Troitsa    District, 

Psychiatric  Hospital 349 

Tolstoy  and  Dr.  Makovicky,  his  physician  and  friend      .      .  355 

In  the  Crimea  during  his  illness z(y2 

Countess  Tolstoy,  denied  admission  to  the  house  in  Astapovo, 

where  Tolstoy  was  lying  in  his  last  illness 371 

Princess  Obolensky  and  aunt  Masha 382 

On  the  estate  "Meshtcherskoe"  in  June,  1910 382 

Tolstoy,  and  his  only  sister,  Maria  Nikolayevna,   for  more 
than  twenty  years,  until  her  death,  a  nun  in  the  Shamar- 

dino    Convent 39^ 

Tolstoy's  rooms  as  he  left  them  on  October  28th,  1910     .     .  405 


REMINISCENCES  OF 
TOLSTOY 


REMINISCENCES  OF 
TOLSTOY 

CHAPTjER  I 

DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  CHARACTERS  OF  HIS  CHILDREN, 
FROM  ONE  OF  MY  FATHER'S  LETTERS.  IMPRES- 
SIONS OF  EARLY  CHILDHOOD.  MY  MOTHER, 
FATHER,  GRANDMOTHER,  HANNAH,  THE  THREE 
DUNYASHAS.       LESSONS.       THE   SCHOOL. 

IN  one  of  his  letters  to  his  father's  cousin,  Alex- 
andra Andreyevna  Tolstoy,  my  father  gives 
the  following  description  of  his  children: 

The  eldest  (Sergei)  Is  fair-haired  and  good-looking;  there 
is  something  weak  and  patient  in  his  expression  and  very 
gentle.  His  laugh  is  not  infectious,  but  when  he  cries,  I 
can  hardly  refrain  from  crying  too.  Every  one  says  he  is 
hke  my  eldest  brother.^ 

I  am  afraid  to  believe  it.  It  is  too  good  to  be  true.  My 
brother's  chief  characteristic  was  neither  egotism  nor  self- 
renunciation  but  a  strict  mean  between  the  two:  he  never 
sacrificed  himself  for  any  one  else,  but  always  avoided,  not 
only  injuring  others,  but  also  interfering  with  them.  He 
kept  his  happiness  and  his  sufferings  entirely  to  himself. 
Seryozha  (Sergei)  is  clever;  he  has  a  systematic  mind  and 
is  sensitive  to  artistic  impressions,  does  his  lessons  splen- 

1  Nikoldi. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

didly,  is  athletic  and  lively  at  games,  but  gauche  and 
absent-minded.  He  lacks  independent-mindedness ;  is  a 
slave  to  his  physical  condition;  according  to  whether  he  is 
well  or  unwell  he  is  two  quite  different  boys.  .  .  . 

Ilya,  the  third,  has  never  been  ill  in  his  life ;  broad-boned, 
white  and  pink,  radiant,  bad  at  lessons.  Is  always  think- 
ing about  what  he  is  told  not  to  think  abouto  Invents  his 
own  games.  Hot-tempered  and  "violent,"  ^  wants  to  fight  at 
once;  but  is  also  tender-hearted  and  very  sensitive.  Sen- 
suous ;  fond  of  eating  and  lying  still  doing  nothing.  When 
he  eats  currant- jelly  and  buck-wheat  kasha  ^  his  lips  itch. 
Independent-minded  in  everything.  When  he  cries,  is  vi- 
cious and  horrid  at  the  same  time;  when  he  laughs  every 
one  laughs  too.  Everything  forbidden  delights  him ;  he 
recognizes  it  at  once. 

Not  long  ago  when  I  was  writing  stories  for  my  "Alpha- 
bet" ^  he  concocted  one  of  his  own :  "A  boy  asked,  'Does 
God  also  .  .  .?'  As  a  punishment,  for  the  rest  of  his  life, 
God  made  the  boy  .  .  ."  If  I  die,  Ilya  will  come  to  grief, 
unless  he  has  some  stern  guardian  whom  he  loves  to  lead 
him  by  the  hand. 

In  the  summer  we  used  to  ride  out  to  bathe ;  Seryozha 
went  on  horseback  by  himself  and  I  took  Ilya  on  the  saddle 
in  front  of  me.  I  went  out  one  morning  and  found  both 
waiting.  Ilya  with  his  hat  on,  bath-towel  and  all  complete, 
in  the  best  of  spirits.  Seryozha  came  running  up  from 
somewhere,  out  of  breath  and  hatless.  "Find  your  hat  or 
I  won't  take  you."     Seryozha  ran  hither  and  thither;  there 

2  "Violent."    Tolstoy  uses  the  French  or  English  word. 

^  Kasha,  a  kind  of  dry  porridge. 

•*  The  "Alphabet"  published  in  1872  in  four  parts,  besides  an  ilhis- 
trated  alphabet  and  a  syllabary,  contains  several  tales  and  fables, 
together  with  extracts  from  various  church  and  secular  books. 


YASNAYA  POLYANA 


"W 


THE  GATES  OF  YASNAYA  POLYANA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

was  no  hat  to  be  found.  "There  's  nothing  for  it ;  I  won't 
take  you  without  a  hat ;  serve  you  right,  it 's  a  lesson ;  you  're 
always  losing  things."  He  was  on  the  verge  of  tears.  I 
rode  off  with  Ilya  and  waited  to  see  if  he  would  show  he 
was  sorry  for  his  brother.  Not  a  bit.  He  beamed  with 
happiness  and  chatted  about  the  horse.  My  wife  found 
Seryozha  in  tears.  She  searched  for  the  hat ;  it  could  n't 
be  found.  She  guessed  that  her  brother,  who  went  out  early 
to  fish,  had  gone  off  with  Seryozha's  hat.  She  wrote  me  a 
note,  saying  that  Seryozha  was  probably  innocent  about  the 
hat  and  sent  him  to  me  in  a  cap.^  (She  had  guessed  right.) 
I  heard  hurried  footsteps  on  the  bridge  of  the  bathing- 
place  ;  Seryozha  ran  in — he  had  lost  the  note  on  the  way — 
and  began  sobbing.  Then  Ilya  followed  suit,  and  I  did 
too,  a  little. 

Tanya  (Tatyana)  is  eight  years  old.  Every  one  says 
that  she  is  like  Sonya,*'  and  I  believe  them,  although  I  am 
pleased  about  that  too;  I  believe  it  only  because  it  is 
obvious.  If  she  had  been  Adam's  eldest  daughter  and  he 
had  had  no  other  children  afterwards  she  would  have  passed 
a  wretched  childhood.  The  greatest  pleasure  that  she  has  is 
to  look  after  children.  She  evidently  finds  a  physical  satis- 
faction in  holding  and  touching  a  little  human  body.  The 
dream  of  her  life,  consciously  by  now,  is  to  have  children. 
The  other  day  I  drove  her  into  Tula  to  have  her  photo- 
graphed. She  begged  me  to  buy  a  knife  for  Seryozha, 
something  else  for  this  one,  something  else  for  that.  She 
knows  exactly  what  will  give  each  the  greatest  pleasure.  I 
bought  nothing  for  her;  she  never  thought  about  herself 
for  a   moment.     As  we  were   driving  home   I   asked  her: 

5  Kartiiz,  the  ordinary  peaked  cap,  yachting  shape,  that  Russian 
workmen  wear. 

^  Tolstoy's  wife,  Sofya  Andreyevna. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Are  you  asleep,  Tanya?"  "No."  "What  are  you  think- 
ing about?"  "I  was  thinking,  when  we  get  home,  I  '11  ask 
mama  if  Lyolya  (Lyof)  has  been  good,  and  how  I  '11 
give  him  his  present,  and  how  I  '11  give  the  others  theirs, 
and  how  Seryozha  will  pretend  he  's  not  a  bit  glad,  but 
really  will  be,  very."  She  is  not  very  clever,  she  is  not 
fond  of  using  her  mind,  but  she  has  a  good  mental  appara- 
tus. She  will  be  a  splendid  woman  if  God  sends  her  a 
husband.  I  am  prepared  to  pay  a  handsome  reward  to  any 
one  who  will  turn  her  into  a  "new  woman." 

The  fourth  is  Lyof.  Handsome,  dexterous,  good  mem- 
ory, graceful.  Any  clothes  fit  him  as  if  they  had  been 
made  for  him.  Everything  that  others  do,  he  does  very 
skilfully  and  well.     Does  not  understand  much  yet. 

The  fifth,  Masha  (Mary)  is  two  years  old,  the  one  whose 
birth  nearly  cost  Sonya  her  life.  A  weak  and  sickly  child. 
Body  white  as  milk,  curly  white  hair;  big  queer  blue  eyes, 
queer  by  reason  of  their  deep  serious  expression.  Very  in- 
telligent and  ugly.  She  will  be  one  of  the  riddles ;  she  will 
suffer,  she  will  seek  and  find  nothing;  will  always  be  seek- 
ing what  is  least  attainable. 

The  sixth,  Peter,  is  a  giant,  a  huge  delightful  baby  in  a 
mobcap ; ''  turns  out  his  elbows,  strives  eagerly  after  some- 
thing. My  wife  falls  into  an  ecstasy  of  agitation  and 
emotion  when  she  holds  him  in  her  arms,  but  I  am  com- 
pletely at  a  loss  to  understand.  I  know  that  he  has  a  great 
store  of  physical  energy,  but  whether  there  is  any  purpose 
for  which  the  store  is  wanted  I  do  not  know.  That  is  why 
I  do  not  care  for  children  under  two  or  three — I  don't  un- 
derstand. 

'He  died  in  1873.— I.  T.  (The  notes  signed  "I.  T."  are  by  the 
author;  the  rest  are  by  the  translator.) 

8 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

This  letter  was  written  in  1872,  when  I  was  six 
years  old.  My  recollections  date  from  about  that 
time,  but  I  can  remember  a  few  things  before. 

For  instance,  I  remember  how  my  father  had  a 
heated  argument  with  somebody  about  the  result  of 
the  Franco-Prussian  War ;  I  remember  what  room  this 
was  in  and  by  what  table.  But  I  cannot  remember 
whom  the  argument  was  with.  I  was  only  three  and 
a  half  years  old. 

From  my  earliest  childhood,  until  the  family 
moved  into  Moscow — that  was  in  1881 — all  my  life 
was  spent,  almost  without  a  break,  at  Yasnaya 
Polyana. 

This  was  how  we  lived.  The  chief  personage  in 
the  house  was  my  mother.  She  settled  everything. 
She  interviewed  Nikolai,  the  cook,  and  ordered  din- 
ner; she  sent  us  out  for  walks,  made  our  shirts,  was 
always  nursing  some  baby  at  the  breast ;  all  day  long 
she  bustled  about  the  house  with  hurried  steps. 
One  could  be  naughty  with  her,  though  she  was  some- 
times angry  and  punished  us. 

She  knew  more  about  everything  than  anybody 
else.  She  knew  that  one  must  wash  every  day,  that 
one  must  eat  soup  at  dinner,  that  one  must  talk 
French,  learn  not  to  crawl  about  on  all  fours,  and  not 
to  put  one's  elbows  on  the  table;  and  if  she  said  that 
one  was  not  to  go  out  for  a  walk  because  it  was  just 
going  to  rain,  she  was  sure  to  be  right,  and  one  had 

9 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

to  do  as  she  said.  When  I  coughed  she  gave  me 
licorice  or  King  of  Denmark  drops ;  ^  so  I  was  very 
fond  of  coughing.  When  my  mother  put  me  to  bed 
and  went  upstairs  to  play  duets  with  father,  I  found 
it  very  hard  to  go  to  sleep;  I  was  annoyed  at  being 
left  alone;  so  I  used  to  start  coughing  and  go  on 
until  nurse  went  and  fetched  mama,  and  I  was 
very  angry  at  her  taking  so  long  to  come.  I  entirely 
refused  to  go  to  sleep  until  she  had  come  to  my  rescue 
and  measured  out  exactly  ten  drops  in  a  wine-glass 
and  given  them  to  me. 

Papa  was  the  cleverest  man  in  the  world.  He  al- 
ways knew  everything.  There  was  no  being  naughty 
with  him.  When  he  was  up  in  his  study  "working," 
one  was  not  allowed  to  make  a  noise,  and  nobody 
might  go  into  his  room.  What  he  did  when  he  was 
at  "work,"  none  of  us  knew.  Later  on,  when  I  had 
learnt  to  read,  I  was  told  that  papa  was  a  "writer." 
It  was  like  this.  I  was  very  pleased  with  some  lines 
of  poetry  one  day,  and  asked  my  mother  who  wrote 
them.  She  told  me  they  were  written  b)^  Pushkin, 
and  Pushkin  was  a  great  writer.  I  was  vexed  at 
my  father  not  being  one,  too.  Then  my  mother  said 
that  my  father  was  also  a  well-known  writer,  and  I 
was  very  glad  indeed. 

At  the  dinner-table  papa  sat  opposite  mama  and 

s  King  of  Denmark   drops,  a  concoction  of  licorice  still  common 
in  Russia  as  a  remedy  for  coughs. 

10 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

had  his  own  round  silver  spoon.  When  old  Natalia 
Petrovna,  who  lived  on  the  floor  below,  with  Great- 
Aunt  Tatyana  Alexandrovna,  poured  herself  out  a 
glass  of  quass,  he  would  pick  it  up  and  drink  it  right 
off,  and  then  say,  "Oh,  I  'm  so  sorry,  Natalia 
Petrovna;  I  made  a  mistake!"  We  all  laughed  de- 
lightedly, and  it  seemed  odd  that  papa  was  not  in  the 
least  afraid  of  Natalia  Petrovna.  When  there  was 
jelly  for  dinner,  papa  said  it  was  good  for  gluing 
paper  boxes ;  we  ran  off  to  get  some  paper,  and  papa 
made  it  into  boxes.  Mama  was  angry,  but  he  was 
not  afraid  of  her  either.  We  had  the  gayest  times 
imaginable  with  him  now  and  then.  He  could  ride 
a  horse  better  and  run  faster  than  anybody  else, 
and  there  was  no  one  in  the  world  as  strong  as  he 
was. 

He  hardly  ever  punished  us,  but  when  he  looked 
me  in  the  eyes  he  knew  everything  that  I  thought, 
and  I  was  frightened.  You  could  tell  stories  to 
mama  but  not  to  papa  because  he  would  see 
through  you  at  once.     So  nobody  ever  tried. 

He  knew  all  our  secrets  too.  When  we  played  at 
houses  under  the  lilac-bushes,  we  had  three  great 
secrets,  which  nobody  knew  but  Seryozha,  Tanya, 
and  me.  All  of  a  sudden  up  came  papa  one  day  and 
said  that  he  knew  all  our  three  secrets  and  they  all 
began  with  a  B,  which  was  perfectly  true.  The  first 
secret  was  that  mama  was  going  to  have  another 

11 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Baby;  the  second,  that  Seryozha  was  in  love  with  a 
Baroness ;  and  the  third  I  forget. 

Besides  papa  and  mama,  there  was  also  Aunt 
Tatyana  Alexandrovna  Yergolski.  She  lived  on  the 
floor  below,  in  a  corner  room,  with  Natalia  Petrovna, 
and  had  a  big  eikon  with  a  silver  mount.  We  were 
very  much  afraid  of  this  eikon,  because  it  was  very 
old  and  black. 

Aunt  Tatyana  always  lay  on  her  bed  and  when  we 
visited  her  gave  us  jam  out  of  a  green  jar.  She  was 
Seryozha's  godmother  and  fonder  of  him  than  of  the 
rest.  She  died  soon  after  and  we  were  taken  down 
to  see  her,  lying  in  her  coffin,  looking  as  if  she  were 
made  of  wax.  There  were  wax  candles  alight  about 
the  coffin  and  in  front  of  the  eikon,  and  it  was  all  very 
terrifying.  Mama  told  us  we  were  not  to  be  fright- 
ened; she  and  papa  were  not;  but  we  huddled  to- 
gether and  kept  close  to  mama. 

The  room  was  occupied  afterwards  by  our  grand- 
mother, Pelageya  Ilyinitchna;  she  also  had  the  black 
eikon  and  also  died  there. 

It  was  a  low-roofed  room,  and  opposite  the  window 
outside  was  a  well,  enormously  deep  and  very  terrify- 
ing. Mama  said  we  were  not  to  go  near  it  because 
one  might  tumble  in  and  get  drowned.  A  bucket  fell 
in  once  and  they  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  it  out 
again. 

Then  there  was  an  Englishwoman,  Hannah,  who 

12 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

lived  in  the  house.  She  was  good-tempered  and  very 
pretty.  We  were  fond  of  her  and  did  what  she  told 
us.  At  Christmas,  when  we  had  the  Christmas  tree, 
she  made  us  a  "plum  pudding."  It  was  brought  to 
the  table  soused  in  rum,  all  in  flames.  When  we 
walked  in  the  garden  with  Hannah  we  were  very 
good  and  did  not  dirty  ourselves  on  the  grass;  but 
once  when  they  sent  Dunyasha  ^  out  with  us,  we  ran 
away  among  the  shrubs.  She  called  after  us :  "Keep 
on  the  path  I  Keep  on  the  path  I"  So  we  nick- 
named her  Dunyasha-keep-on-the-path.  Another 
Dunyasha  was  a  housemaid  who  never  could  remem- 
ber anything;  so  we  called  her  Dunyasha-can't- 
remember.  The  third  Dunyasha,  wife  to  the  bailiff 
Alexey  Stepanytch,  was  known  as  Dunyasha-mama- 
has-come-on-business. 

She  lived  on  the  ground  floor  of  the  annex  ^^  and 
always  kept  the  door  locked.  When  we  went  with 
mama  to  see  her,  we  used  to  knock  at  the  door  and 
call  out,  "Dunyasha,  mama  has  come  on  business." 
Then  she  opened  the  oil-cloth  door  and  let  us  in. 
We  loved  to  be  given  tea  with  jam  in  it  when  we 
went  to  see  her.     She  gave  us  the  jam  in  a  saucer, 

^  Dunya,  Dunyasha,  is  a  familiar  form  for  Avdotya,  which  is  the 
Russian  version  of  the  Greek  Eudoxia. 

i<>The  Russian  word  "fligel,"  though  identical  with  the  German 
"fliigel,"  does  not  as  a  rule  mean  a  "wing"  of  a  house  in  the  Eng- 
lish sense,  but  a  separate  building  of  inferior  splendor,  immediately 
adjoining. 

13 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  she  had  only  one  silver  spoon;  it  was  small  and 
thin  and  all  chewed  out  of  shape.  We  knew  the 
reason  of  that;  the  pig  found  it  in  the  rinsing-tub 
and  chewed  it  up. 

When  I  ceased  to  be  a  baby  and  reached  the  age 
of  five,  my  mother  began  to  give  me  reading  and 
writing  lessons.  First  of  all  I  did  my  lessons  in 
Russian,  but  after  a  little  while  in  French  and  Eng- 
lish. Papa  himself  taught  me  arithmetic.  I  had 
already  heard  of  Seryozha's  and  Tanya's  lessons  and 
I  was  a  good  deal  alarmed;  for  sometimes  when 
Seryozha  could  not  understand  a  thing,  papa  would 
say  that  he  did  not  understand  on  purpose.  Then 
Seryozha  would  pucker  up  his  eyes  and  begin  to  cry. 
Sometimes  I  could  not  understand  a  thing  either,  and 
he  used  to  get  wevy  angry  with  me.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  lesson  he  was  always  good-tempered  and 
made  little  jokes ;  but  when  it  became  difficult  and  he 
had  to  explain,  I  was  frightened  and  could  not  under- 
stand a  word. 

When  I  was  six,  I  remember  my  father  teaching 
the  village  children.  They  had  their  lessons  in  "the 
other  house,"  ^^  where  Alexey  Stepanytch,  the  bailiff, 
lived,  and  sometimes  on  the  ground  floor  of  the  house 
we  lived  in. 

There  were  a  great  number  of  these  children  who 
used  to  come.     When  they  came,  the  front  hall  smelt 

11  The  name  we  gave  to  the  stone  fligel,  or  annex. — I.  T. 

14 


H 
C 

r 
■J 

H 

C 
< 

z 

c 


c 


z 


r 
c 

Z 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  sheep-skin  jackets;  they  were  taught  by  papa  and 
Seryozha  and  Tanya  and  Uncle  Kostya  ^"  all  at 
once.     Lesson  time  was  very  gay  and  lively. 

The  children  did  exactly  as  they  pleased,  sat  where 
they  liked,  ran  about  from  place  to  place,  and 
answered  questions  not  one  by  one,  but  all  together, 
interrupting  one  another  and  helping  one  another  to 
recall  what  they  had  read.  If  one  left  out  a  bit,  up 
jumped  another  and  then  another,  and  the  story  or 
sum  was  reconstructed  by  the  united  efforts  of  the 
whole  class. 

What  pleased  my  father  most  about  his  pupils 
was  the  picturesqueness  and  originality  of  their  lan- 
guage. He  never  wanted  a  literal  repetition  of 
bookish  expressions,  and  particularly  encouraged 
everything  "  out  of  your  own  head,"  I  remember 
how  he  once  stopped  a  boy  who  was  running  into 
the  next  room. 

"Where  are  you  off  to'?"  he  asked. 

"To  uncle,  to  bite  off  a  piece  of  chalk."  ^^ 

"Cut  along,  cut  along  I  It's  not  for  us  to  teach 
them,  but  for  them  to  teach  us,"  he  said  to  some  one 
when  the  boy  was  gone.      "Which  of  us  would  have 

12  Konstantin   Islavin.     See   Chapter  V. 

13  The  instinct  for  lime,  necessary  to  feed  their  bones,  drives 
Russian  children  to  nibble  pieces  of  chalk  or  the  whitewash  off 
the  wall.  In  this  case  the  boy  is  running  to  one  of  the  grown-ups 
about  the  house,  probably  to  the  Dvornlk  or  yardman  (e\'ery  one 
is  "Uncle"  to  a  Russian  child)  to  bite  at  a  piece  of  the  chalk  he 
had  for  whitewashing. 

17 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

expressed  himself  like  that?  You  see  he  did  n't 
say  to  'get'  or  to  'break  off'  but  to  'bite  off,'  which 
is  right,  because  they  do  literally  'bite'  off  the  chalk 
from  the  lump  with  their  teeth,  and  don't  'break' 
it  off." 

One  day  my  father  set  me  to  teach  a  boy  his  alpha- 
bet. I  did  my  very  best  but  he  could  n't  understand 
it  in  the  least.  I  lost  my  temper  and  hit  him;  he 
hit  back,  and  we  fought  and  both  cried.  Papa 
came  up  and  told  me  I  was  not  to  teach  any  more 
because  I  did  n't  know  how.  I  was  naturally  very 
angry  and  went  and  told  my  mother  that  it  was  n't 
my  fault,  because  Tanya  and  Seryozha  had  clever 
boys  to  teach,  but  mine  was  a  nasty  stupid  one. 


18 


/ 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  HOUSEHOLD.  NIKOLAI  THE  COOK.  ALEXEY 
STEPANYTCH,  AGAFYA  MIKHAILOVNA.  MARYA 
AFANASYEVN4.       SERGEI  PETROVITCH. 

I  CAME  into  the  world  at  the  period  when  our 
household  still  consisted  of  those  who  had 
formerly  been  serfs  of  the  family.  They  are 
all  dead  and  buried  now,  but  I  am  going  to  tell  about 
them,  because  so  many  of  my  recollections  of  my 
childhood  and  of  my  father  are  bound  up  with 
them. 

When  my  father  married  and  brought  home  his 
young  and  inexperienced  bride,  Sofya  Andreyevna,  to 
Yasnaya  Polyana,  Nikolai  Mikhailovitch  Rumyan- 
tsef,  ex-flute-player  in  Prince  Nikolai  Sergeyevitch 
Volkonski's  orchestra  of  serfs,  was  already  estab- 
lished as  cook. 

When  we  asked  him,  as  children,  why  he  had  given 
up  playing  the  flute,  he  told  us  he  had  lost  the 
*' embouchure,''''^  so  they  made  him  a  cook.  Before 
my  father's  marriage,  he  had  a  salary  of  five  rubles  a 

1  "Embouchure,"  a  technical  term;  in  order  to  play  wind  instru- 
ments, the  player  has  to  be  able  to  adjust  his  lips  in  a  particular 
way. — I.  T. 

19 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

month ;  but  when  my  mother  arrived,  she  raised  him 
to  six,  at  which  rate  he  continued  the  rest  of  his  days ; 
that  is,  till  somewhere  about  the  end  of  the  eighties.^ 
He  was  succeeded  in  the  kitchen  by  his  son,  Seymon 
Nikoldyevitch,  my  mother's  godson,  and  this  worthy 
and  beloved  man,  companion  of  my  childish  games, 
still  lives  with  us  to  this  day.  Under  my  mother's 
supervision  he  prepared  my  father's  vegetarian  diet 
with  affectionate  zeal,  and  without  him,  who  knows? 
my  father  would  very  likely  never  have  lived  to  the 
ripe  old  age  he  did.  During  his  latter  years  my 
father  never  felt  well  except  at  Yasnaya,  and  every 
time  he  went  away  and  had  to  take  to  a  diet  he  was 
not  accustomed  to  he  was  attacked  by  gastric 
troubles. 

Nikolai,  the  father,  was  a  typical  serf,  with  all  the 
serf's  good  and  bad  qualities.  He  was  dirty  and 
fond  of  liquor;  he  often  got  so  drunk  that  his  wife 
had  to  come  and  do  the  cooking  for  him;  but  his 
reverence  for  the  "masters"  extended  to  deep  obei- 
sances and  he  was  afraid  of  them.  He  was  one  of 
those  folk  of  the  old  generation — and  I  have  met 
with  many  such  in  my  time — who  regretted  the  old 
days  of  serfdom  and  dependence,  and  by  no  means 
rejoiced  in  the  Emancipation.  "We  were  better 
off  then,"  he  would  say;  "we  were  strictly  kept,  we 
had  to  mind  our  P's  and  Q's,  but  they  looked  after 

2  His  salary  was  raised  from  about  nine  pounds  a  year  to  eleven. 

20 


TOLSTOY   AS    A   YOUNG    MAN 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

us  well.  In  the  old  days  you  knew  you  would 
never  starve.  But  now,  if  they  turn  me  out  from 
here,  and  I  have  to  leave  my  master,  where  will  I 
go  to?" 

We  enjoyed  running  into  the  kitchen  to  get  him  to 
give  us  hot  pies  or  levdshniks.  His  levdsliniks  were 
made  of  pastry  with  jam  inside.  To  prevent  their 
"settling,"  Nikolai  used  to  blow  into  them  from  one 
corner,  not  through  a  straw,  but  with  his  lips.  This 
process  was  known  as  "  les  soupirs  de  Nicolas." 

Our  French  teacher.  Monsieur  Nief,  killed  a 
kozyula  or  viper  one  day  in  the  garden  and  cut  off 
its  head  with  his  penknife,  and  in  order  to  prove  to 
us  that  its  flesh  was  not  poisonous,  he  resolved  to 
fry  it  and  eat  it.  We  all  followed  him  to  the 
kitchen.  He  showed  Nikolai  Mikhailovitch  the 
viper,  which  hung  from  his  hand,  and  asked  him,  in 
broken  Russian,  to  lend  him  a  frying-pan.  We 
peeped  in  from  the  doorway  and  wondered  what  the 
result  would  be. 

For  a  long  time  Nikolai  Mikhailovitch  could  not 
make  out  what  the  Frenchman  wanted  with  him. 
When  it  dawned  on  him  at  last  he  picked  up  a  cook- 
ing-shovel ^  from  the  corner,  and  brandishing  it  over 
Monsieur  Nief's  head,  bellowed:  "Get  out,  you 
heathen;  I'll  teach  you  to  defile  the  master's  pots 

3  Tchdpelnik,  a  long-handled  shovel  used  for  putting  the  frying- 
pan  on  the  stove  and  lifting  it  off. 

23 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  pans !  Away  with  you !  The  other  day  it  was 
a  squirrel  he  brought  to  fry,  and  now  it 's  come  to  a 
viper.     Away !" 

"Qu-est-ce  qu'il  dit?  qu'est-ce  qu'il  dit^"  asked 
Monsieur  Nief,  backing  in  some  alarm.  We  were 
delighted,  and  ran  away  laughing  to  tell  mama  all 
about  it. 


Alexey  Stepanovitch  Orj^khof,  also  a  former  serf, 
was  a  peasant  proprietor  of  Yasnaya. 

When  my  father  went  to  Sebastopol  he  took  him 
with  him  as  his  orderly. 

I  remember  my  father  telling  me  that  during  the 
siege  he  was  quartered  in  the  Fourth  Bastion  with  a 
brother  officer  who  also  had  a  man-servant,  and  this 
man-servant  was  a  terrible  coward.  When  they  sent 
him  to  the  soldiers'  mess  to  get  the  dinner,^  he  used 
to  duck  and  dodge  in  the  most  ridiculous  manner,  to 
avoid  the  flying  shells  and  bullets;  whereas  Alexey 
Stepanovitch  was  not  in  the  least  afraid  and  walked 
boldly  across. 

So  they  gave  up  sending  Alexey  on  any  errands 
and  always  sent  the  coward;  and  all  the  officers  used 
to  turn  out  to  see  him  crawling  and  crouching  and 
ducking  at  every  step. 

By  my   time,   Alexey   Stepanovitch  had  become 

4  On  active  service,  officers  and  men   share  the  same  mess. 

24 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

bailiff  or  manager  at  Yasnaya  Polyana.  He  and 
Dunyasha  lived  together  in  "the  other  house." 

He  was  a  grave,  staid  man ;  we  had  a  great  respect 
for  him  and  wondered  at  papa's  thee-ing  and  thou-ing 
him. 

I  will  tell  about  his  death  later  on. 


Agafya  Mikhailovna  was  an  old  woman  who  lived 
at  first  in  the  kitchen  of  "the  other  house"  and  after- 
wards on  the  home  farm.  Tall  and  thin  with  big, 
thoroughbred  eyes,  and  long  straight  hair,  like  a 
witch,  turning  gray,  she  was  rather  terrifying,  but, 
above  all,  she  was  queer. 

Once  upon  a  time  long  ago  she  had  been  house- 
maid to  my  father's  grandmother.  Countess  Pelageya 
Nikolayevna  Tolstoy,  nee  Princess  Gortchakof. 
She  was  fond  of  talking  about  her  young  days. 

"I  was  very  handsome,"  she  used  to  say.  "When 
there  were  gentlefolks  visiting  at  the  big  house,  the 
Countess  would  call  me,  'Gachette  [Agafya],  femme 
de  chambre,  apportez-moi  un  mouchoir!'  Then  I 
would  say,  'Toute  suite,  Madame  la  Comtesse!' 
And  every  one  would  stare  at  me  and  not  be  able  to 
take  their  eyes  off.  When  I  crossed  over  to  the 
Annex,  there  they  would  be,  watching  to  catch  me  on 
the  way.  Many  a  time  have  I  tricked  them;  run 
round  the  other  way  and  jumped  over  the  ditch.     I 

25 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

never  liked  that  sort  of  thing  any  time.  A  maid  I 
was,  a  maid  I  am." 

After  my  grandmother's  death,  Agafya  Mikhai- 
lovna  was  sent  on  to  the  home  farm  for  some  reason 
or  other,  and  minded  the  sheep.  She  got  so  fond  of 
sheep  that  all  her  days  after  she  never  could  touch 
mutton. 

Next  to  the  sheep,  she  had  an  affection  for  dogs, 
and  that  is  the  only  period  of  her  life  that  I  remember 
her  in. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  world  she  cared  about 
but  dogs.  She  lived  with  them  in  horrible  dirt  and 
smells  and  gave  up  her  whole  mind  and  soul  to  them. 
We  always  had  setters,  harriers,  and  greyhounds,  and 
the  whole  kennel,  often  very  numerous,  was  under 
Agafya  Mikhailovna's  management,  with  some  boy 
or  other  to  help  her,  usually  a  very  clumsy  and  stupid 
one. 

There  are  many  interesting  recollections  bound  up 
with  the  memory  of  this  intelligent  and  original 
woman.  Most  of  them  are  associated  in  my  mind 
with  the  stories  my  father  told  me  about  her.  He 
could  always  catch  and  unravel  any  interesting 
psychological  trait,  and  these  traits,  which  he  would 
mention  incidentally,  stuck  firmly  in  my  mind.  He 
used  to  tell,  for  instance,  how  Agafya  Mikhailovna 
complained  to  him  of  sleeplessness. 

"Ever  since  I  can  remember  her,  she  has  suffered, 

26 


< 

Id 

< 
a 
a 


a 

X 
H 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

she  says,  from  'a  birch-tree  growing  inside  me  from 
my  belly  up;  it  presses  against  my  chest,  and  pre- 
vents my  breathing.'  She  complained  one  day  of 
her  sleeplessness  and  the  birch-tree,  and  said :  'There 
I  lay  all  alone,  and  all  was  quiet  but  the  clock  ticking 
on  the  wall:  "Who  are  you?  What  are  you? 
Who  are  you?  What  are  you?"  ^  it  said.  And  I 
began  to  think:  "Who  am  I?  What  am  I?"  and 
so  I  spent  the  whole  night  thinking  about  it.' 

"Why,  just  imagine  I  This  is  jvajdc  (reaozov^  'Know 
thyself,'  this  is  Socrates  I"  added  my  father,  telling 
the  story  with  great  enthusiasm. 

In  the  summer-time  my  mother's  brother,  Styopa 
(Stephen  Behrs),  who  was  studying  at  the  time  in 
the  school  of  jurisprudence,  used  to  come  and  stay 
with  us.  In  the  autumn  he  used  to  go  out  coursing 
with  greyhounds,  with  my  father  and  us,  and  Agafya 
Mikhailovna  loved  him  for  that. 

Styopa's  examination  was  in  the  spring.  Agafya 
Mikhailovna  knew  about  it  and  anxiously  waited 
for  the  news  of  whether  he  had  got  through. 

One  day  she  put  up  a  candle  before  the  eikon  and 
prayed  that  Styopa  might  pass.  But  at  that  mo- 
ment she  remembered  that  her  greyhounds  had  got 
out  and  had  not  come  back  to  the  kennels  again. 

"  'Saints  in  heaven  I'  I  said  to  myself,  'they  '11  get 
in  to  some  place  and  worry  the  cattle  and  do  a  mis- 

s  Russian :  Kto  ty,  tchto  ty,  kto  ty,  tchto  ty. 

29 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

chief!  Lord,  let  my  candle  burn  for  the  dogs  to 
come  back  quick,  and  I  '11  buy  another  for  Stepan 
Andreyevitch.'  And  no  sooner  had  I  said  it  than  I 
heard  the  dogs  rattling  their  collars  in  the  porch. 
Thank  God!  they  had  come  back.  You  see  what 
prayer  can  do." 

Another  favorite  of  Agafya  Mikhailovna  was  a 
young  man,  Misha  Stakhovitch,^  who  often  stayed 
with  us. 

''See  what  you  have  been  and  done  to  me,  little 
Countess!"  she  said  reproachfully  to  my  sister 
Tanya:  "You've  introduced  me  to  Mikhail  Alex- 
androvitch  and  I  've  fallen  in  love  with  him  in  my 
old  age,  like  a  wicked  woman !" 

On  the  fifth  of  February,  her  name-day,"^  Agafya 
Mikhailovna  received  a  telegram  of  congratulation 
from  Stakhovitch. 

When  my  father  heard  of  it  he  said  jokingly  to 
Agafya  Mikhailovna:  "Are  n't  you  ashamed  that  a 
man  had  to  trudge  two  miles  through  the  frost  at 
night,  all  for  the  sake  of  your  telegram*?" 

^Mikhail  Alexandrovitch  Stakhovitch,  born  in  i36i,  a  landowner 
of  Oryol  Province.  Now  one  of  the  foremost  politicians  of  Russia: 
Member  of  the  First  and  Second  Dumas,  and  appointed  later  to 
the  Senate.  He  is  chiefly  known  for  a  speech  of  1906,  recommend- 
ing tolerance  to  both  parties,  the  revolutionaries  and  the  reaction- 
aries, which  naturally  excited  the  indignation  of  both. 

^  Name-day.  That  is,  the  day  of  the  saint  whose  name  she 
received  at  baptism,  celebrated  as  we  celebrate  birthdays.  Feb- 
ruary 5th  is  the  festival  of  St.  Agatha  (Agafya). 

30 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Trudge,  trudge*?  Angels  bore  him  on  their 
wings.  Trudge  indeed!  You  get  three  telegrams 
from  an  outlandish  Jew  woman,"  she  growled,  "and 
telegrams  every  day  about  your  Golokhvotika; 
never  a  trudge  then;  but  I  get  name-day  greetings, 
and  it 's  'trudge'  I" 

And  one  could  not  but  acknowledge  that  she  was 
right.  This  telegram,  the  only  one  in  the  whole 
year  that  was  addressed  to  the  kennels,  by  the 
pleasure  it  gave  Agafya  Mikhailovna  was  certainly 
far  more  important  than  some  news  or  other  about  a 
ball  given  in  Moscow  in  honor  of  a  Jewish  banker's 
daughter,  or  about  Olga  Andreyevna  Golokvastovy's 
arrival  at  Yasnaya. 

When  Alexey  Stepanovitch,  the  bailiif,  was  dying, 
he  lay  all  alone  in  his  room,  and  Agafya  Mikhai- 
lovna used  to  come  and  sit  with  him  for  hours,  nurs- 
ing him  and  entertaining  him  with  conversation.  He 
was  ill  for  a  long  time,  with  cancer  of  the  stomach,  I 
believe.  His  wife,  Dunyasha-mama-has-come-on- 
business,  had  died  some  years  before. 

On  one  of  the  long  winter  evenings  when  Alexey 
Stepanytch  lay  in  bed,  and  Agafya  Mikhailovna  sat 
beside  him  making  tea  for  him,  they  discoursed  of 
death  and  agreed  that  whichever  of  them  died  first 
would  tell  the  other,  when  the  moment  came,  whether 
it  was  a  pleasant  thing  to  die. 

When  Alexey  Stepanytch  lost  all  his  strength  and 

31 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

it  was  evident  that  death  was  near,  Agafya  Mikhai- 
lovna  was  mindful  of  their  conversation,  and  asked 
him  if  he  was  happy. 

.  "Very,  very  happy,  Agafya  Mikhailovna,"  he  an- 
swered, and  those  were  almost  his  last  words.  This 
was  in  1882. 

She  was  fond  of  telling  this  story,  and  I  had  it 
both  from  her  and  from  my  father.  My  father  was 
always  extraordinarily  curious  and  attentive  about 
the  sensations  of  the  dying,  and,  whenever  he  could, 
picked  up  the  smallest  details  about  their  experi- 
ences. 

He  associated  the  story  in  his  mind  with  the  mem- 
ory of  his  elder  brother  Dmitry,  of  whom  he  was  very 
fond,  and  with  whom  he  entered  into  a  compact  that 
whichever  of  them  died  first  would  come  back  after 
death  and  tell  the  other  of  his  life  "beyond."  But 
Dmitry  Nikolayevitch  died  fifty  years  before  my 
father  and  never  came  back  to  tell  the  tale. 

Agafya  Mikhailovna  did  not  confine  her  affection 
to  dogs.  She  had  a  mouse  that  used  to  come  out 
when  she  had  tea  and  pick  up  the  bread  crumbs  on  the 
table. 

Once  we  picked  a  quantity  of  wild  strawberries, 
clubbed  threepence  together  for  a  pound  of  sugar,  and 
made  Agafya  Mikhailovna  a  jar  of  jam.  She  was 
very  pleased  and  thanked  us  warmly. 

"All  of  a  sudden,"  she  told  us,  "as  I  sat  down  to 

32 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

my  tea  and  put  out  my  hand  for  the  jam,  I  found  the 
mouse  in  the  jam-pot.  I  took  her  out,  washed  her 
well  with  warm  water,  struggle  as  she  might,  and 
then  let  her  go  on  the  table  again." 

"And  the  jam?" 

"I  threw  the  jam  away.  A  mouse  is  a  heathen  ^ 
beast,  I  would  n't  eat  anything  a  mouse  had  been  at." 

Agafya  Mikhailovna  died  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineties.  There  were  no  more  hounds  or  sporting 
dogs  at  Yasnaya  then,  but  she  gave  shelter  to  a 
motley  collection  of  mongrels,  and  tended  and  fed 
them  till  the  end  of  her  days.^ 

I  recall  with  gratitude  the  memory  of  my  old  nurse, 
Marya  Afanasyevna,  a  colorless  but  good  old  woman, 
who  nursed  the  five  eldest  of  us.  She  had  the  keys 
of  the  store-room  and  we  delighted  in  running  to  her 
room  to  ask  for  "Almonds  an'  'aisins." 

Her  son,  Sergei  Petrovitch  Arbuzof,  was  our  foot- 
man for  many  years,  and  it  was  with  him  that  my 
father  afterwards  used  to  go  on  his  visits  to  the  Opta 
Hermitage. ^*^     He  was  a  carpenter  by  handicraft, 

^  "Heathen,"  pogdny,  from  the  Latin  pas^anus;  "of  the  devil," 
"unclean"  in  the  Pentateuchal  sense. 

^  Readers  of  "Anna  Karenina"  may  remember  that  Tolstoy  gave 
the  name  Agafya  Mikhailovna  to  Levin's  housekeeper,  doubtless  in 
memory  of  this  old  member  of  his  own  household. 

^^  A  famous  and  populous  "Hermitage" — something  after  the 
manner  of  the  hermitage  in  the  Thebaid  described  by  Anatole 
France  —  said  to  have  been  founded  in  the  14th  century  by  Opta, 
a  repentant  brigand.  Tolstoy  paid  frequent  visits  to  the  Hermitage 
when  he  was  searching  for  a  religion. 

33 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

was  liable  to  bouts  of  drink  and  wore  bright  red 
whiskers. 

Her  other  son,  Pavel,  was  a  bootmaker,  lived  in 
the  village  and  was  my  father's  first  teacher  when 
he  took  up  bootmaking. 


34 


CHAPTER  III 

YASNAYA     POLYANA.       THE     HOUSE.       PORTRAITS     OF 
ANCESTORS.        MY  FATHER's  STUDY. 

I  CAN  remember  the  house  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 
as  it  was  during  the  first  years  after  my  father's 
marriage. 

It  was  one  of  the  two-storied  stone  wings  of  the 
old  mansion-house  of  the  Princes  Volkonski/  which 
my  father  had  sold  for  pulling  down  when  he  was 
still  a  bachelor. 

From  what  my  father  has  told  me,  I  know  that 
the  house  in  which  he  was  born  and  spent  his  youth 
was  a  three-storied  building  with  thirty-six  rooms. 
On  the  spot  where  it  stood,  between  the  two  wings, 
the  remains  of  the  old  stone  foundation  are  still  vis- 
ible in  the  form  of  trenches  filled  with  rubble,  and 
the  site  is  covered  with  big  sixty-year-old  trees  which 
my  father  planted  himselt. 

1  The  possession  of  a  stone  house  in  Russia,  where  wood  is  the 
usual  material  for  building,  gives  an  exceptional  feeling  of  con- 
tinuity and  hereditary  grandeur.  "The  existence  of  an  old-estab- 
lished family  residence,  in  which  each  successive  owner  has  left 
some  evidence  of  his  own  personality,  a  family  monument,  which 
every  member  regards  with  a  feeling  of  affection  and  pride,  is 
a  rare  exception  in  the  rural  districts." — F.  H.  E.  Palmer,  "Russian 
Life  in  Town  and  Country,"  1901. 

35 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

When  any  one  asked  my  father  where  he  was  born, 
he  used  to  point  to  a  tall  larch  which  grew  on  the 
site  of  the  old  foundations. 

"Up  there,  where  the  top  of  that  larch  waves,"  he 
used  to  say;  "that's  where  my  mother's  room  was, 
where  I  was  born  on  a  leather  sofa." 

It  was  strange  to  look  up  and  see  the  slender  tree- 
top  and  imagine  that  there  was  a  room  up  there  once, 
and  that  in  it  stood  the  walnut  and  leather  sofa  on 
which  we  older  ones  were  born,  and  which  now 
stands  in  my  father's  study ;  and  that  once,  long  ago, 
my  father  was  a  little  child  and  had  a  mama  just 
like  we  had.  Only  my  father  could  not  remember 
his  mother.  She  died  when  he  was  only  two  years 
old  and  he  only  knew  about  her  from  what  he  had 
been  told  by  his  relatives. 

She  was  small  and  ugly,  but  she  had  big  clear  eyes, 
full  of  light  and  kindness. 

She  had  a  wonderfully  entertaining  way  of  telling 
children's  stories  and  my  father  used  to  say  that  it 
was  from  her  that  his  eldest  brother  Nikolai  inherited 
his  cleverness. 

My  father  seldom  spoke  of  his  mother,  but  when 
he  did,  it  was  delightful  to  hear  him,  because  the  men- 
tion of  her  awoke  an  unusual  strain  of  gentleness  and 
tenderness  in  him.  There  was  such  a  ring  of  re- 
spectful affection,  so  much  reverence  for  her  memory 

36 


PHOTOGRAPHS   OF   THE   FAMILY 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

in  his  words,  that  we  all  looked  on  her  as  a  sort  of 
saint. 

My  father  was  nine  when  his  father  died,  and  he 
remembered  him  well.  He  loved  him  too,  and 
always  spoke  of  him  reverently;  but  I  always  felt 
that  his  mother's  memory,  although  he  had  never 
known  her,  was  dearer  to  him,  and  his  love  for  her  far 
greater  than  for  his  father. 

Even  to  this  day  I  do  not  know  the  story  of  the 
sale  of  the  old  house  exactly.  My  father  never  liked 
talking  about  it,  and  for  that  reason  I  could  never 
make  up  my  mind  to  ask  him  the  details  of  the  trans- 
action. I  only  know  that  the  house  was  sold  by  one 
of  his  relatives,  who  had  charge  of  his  affairs  by 
power  of  attorney,  when  he  was  in  the  Caucasus,  for 
5000  paper  roubles.^ 

It  was  said  to  have  been  sold  to  pay  off  my  father's 
gambling  debts.     That  is  quite  true. 

My  father  told  me  himself  that  at  one  time  he  was 
a  great  card-player,  that  he  lost  large  sums  of  money 
and  that  his  financial  affairs  were  considerably  em- 
barrassed. 

The  only  thing  about  which  I  am  in  doubt  is 
whether  it  was  with  my  father's  cognizance  or  by  his 
directions  that  the  house  was  sold;  or  whether  the 
relative  in  question  did  not  exceed  his  instructions 

2  About  £600. 

39 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  decide  on  the  sale  of  his  own  initiative — the  most 
probable  explanation. 

My  father  cherished  his  parents'  memory  to  such 
an  extent,  and  had  such  a  warm  affection  for  every- 
thing relating  to  his  own  childhood  that  it  is  hard  to 
believe  that  he  would  have  raised  his  hand  against 
the  house  in  which  he  had  been  born  and  brought  up 
and  in  which  his  mother  had  spent  her  whole 
life. 

Knowing  my  father  as  I  do  I  think  he  very  likely 
wrote  to  his  relative  from  the  Caucasus :  "Sell  some- 
thing," not  in  the  least  expecting  that  he  would 
sell  the  house,  and  that  he  afterwards  took  the 
blame  for  it  on  himself.  Is  that  not  the  reason  why 
he  was  always  so  unwilling  to  talk  about  it^ 

In  1871,  when  I  was  five  years  old,  the  zala  ^  and 
study  were  built  onto  the  house. 

I  well  remember  the  masons  at  their  work,  the 
knocking  of  the  door-ways  through  the  walls  of  the 
old  house,  and,  especially  clearly,  the  laying  of  the 
parquet  floors.  I  enjoyed  sitting  on  the  floor  where 
the  carpenters  were  at  work,  watching  them  fitting  in 
the  oak  slats,  planing  them,  smearing  them  with  their 

3  The  zala  is  the  chief  room  of  a  house,  corresponding  to  the 
English  drawing-room>  but  on  a  grand  scale.  The  gostinaya  — 
literally  "guest-room" — usually  translated  as  "drawing-room" — 
is  a  place  for  more  intimate  receptions.  At  Yasnaya  Polyana  meals 
were  taken  in  the  zala  but  this  is  not  the  general  Russian  custom, 
houses  being  provided  also  with  a  stolovaya  or  dining-room. 


40 


REiMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

smelly  glue  and  knocking  them  tight  into  the  mortises 
with  their  hammers. 

When  they  had  finished  the  parquet  and  waxed  it 
over,  it  was  so  slipper}^  one  was  afraid  to  walk  on 
it.  And  when  it  began  to  dry,  it  used  to  go  off  at 
times  with  loud  reports  like  gim-shots;  if  I  was  alone 
in  the  room  this  was  always  too  much  for  me,  and  I 
took  to  my  heels. 

The  walls  of  the  zala  were  hung  with  old  ancestral 
portraits.*  They  were  rather  alarming,  and  I  was 
afraid  of  them  at  first ;  but  we  got  used  to  them  after 
a  time  and  I  grew  quite  fond  of  one  of  them,  of  my 
great-grandfather  Ilya  Andreyevitch  Tolstoy,  because 
I  was  told  that  I  was  like  him.  He  had  a  fat,  good- 
natured  face.  My  father  told  me  that  he  used  to 
send  his  linen  abroad  to  be  washed,  that  he  was  im- 
mensely hospitable,  jovial,  and  generous,  and  that  he 
squandered  the  whole  of  his  wife's  enormous  fortune. 

Beside  him  hung  the  portrait  of  another  great- 
grandfather. Prince  Nikolai  Sergeyevitch  Volkonski, 
my  grandmother's  father,  with  thick,  black  e5^ebrows, 
a  gray  wig,  and  a  red  kaftan.^  This  Volkonski  built 
all  the  buildings  of  Yasnaya  Polyana.  He  was  a 
model  squire,  intelligent  and  proud,  and  enjoyed  the 
immense  respect  of  all  the  neighborhood. 

*  Quite  an  unusual  feature,  even  in  the  noblest  Russian  houses, 
^Kaftan,  a  long  coat  of  various  cuts,  including  the  military  and 
naval  frock-coat  and  the   long  gown  worn  by  coachmen. 


41 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

On  another  wall,  between  the  doors,  a  big  portrait 
of  the  blind  old  Prince  Gortchakof,  father  to  my 
great-grandmother,  Pelageya  Nikolayevna  Tolstoy, 
Ilya  Andreyevitch's  wife,  filled  the  whole  bay.  He 
was  represented  sitting  at  a  semi-circular  table  with 
his  eyes  shut,  and  about  him,  on  both  sides,  lay 
pocket-handkerchiefs  which  he  kept  by  him  to  wipe 
his  watery  eyes  with. 

He  was  said  to  have  been  very  rich  and  very  av- 
aricious. He  was  fond  of  counting  his  money  and 
spent  whole  days  going  through  his  bank-notes. 
When  he  lost  his  sight,  he  used  to  make  one  of  his 
familiars,  the  only  person  he  trusted,  bring  him  his 
cherished  mahogany  casket,  which  he  unlocked  with 
the  key  he  kept  on  his  person,  and  went  on  fingering 
the  old  crumpled  notes  over  and  over  again.  While 
he  was  so  engaged,  his  confidant  used  secretly  to  steal 
the  notes  one  by  one  from  the  heap  and  slip  pieces  of 
newspaper  into  their  place.  And  the  old  man  went 
on  fumbling  the  pieces  of  newspaper  with  his  thin 
tremulous  fingers  and  believed  that  he  was  still  count- 
ing money. 

Further  along  hung  the  portrait  of  a  nun  with  a 
rosary,  mother  of  Gortchakof,  nee  Princess  Mordkin, 
born  in  1705;  another,  of  Nikolai  Volkonski's  wife, 
nee  Princess  Trubetskoy;  and  another,  of  Volkonski's 
father,  who  laid  out  the  park  and  planted  the  lime- 
walks  and  prishpckts  or  avenues. 

42 


^i^AJMWmiiMW^^^nillMJiMMffl 


TOLSTOY  S    KCJOM    ON    THE    GROUND    FLOOR    AT    VASXAYA    POLYANA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

On  the  ground  floor  under  the  zala,  next  to  the 
entrance  hall,  my  father  built  his  study.  He  had  a 
semi-circular  niche  made  in  the  wall  and  stood  a 
marble  bust  of  his  favorite  dead  brother  Nikolai  in  it. 
This  bust  was  made  abroad  from  a  death-mask,  and 
my  father  told  us  that  it  was  very  like,  because  it  was 
done  by  a  good  sculptor  according  to  his  own  direc- 
tions. He  had  a  kind  and  rather  plaintive  face. 
The  hair  was  brushed  smooth  like  a  child's  with  the 
parting  on  one  side.  The  bust  had  no  beard  or 
mustache,  and  it  was  white  and  very,  very  clean. 

My  father's  study  was  divided  in  two  by  a  par- 
tition of  big  bookshelves,  containing  a  multitude  of 
all  sorts  of  books.  In  order  to  support  the  shelves, 
they  were  connected  by  big  wooden  beams,  and 
between  them  was  a  thin  birch-wood  door,  behind 
which  stood  my  father's  writing-table  and  his  old- 
fashioned  circular  arm-chair. 

These  two  connecting  beams  still  exist.  I  am 
afraid  to  look  at  them  even  now,  because  I  know  that 
once  my  father  wanted  to  hang  himself  on  them. 

The  walls  were  adorned  with  antlers,  which  my 
father  brought  back  from  the  Caucasus,  and  a  stuffed 
stag's  head.  He  used  the  antlers  to  hang  his  hat  and 
his  towel  on. 

There  were  portraits  of  Dickens  and  Schopenhauer 
and  Fet  ^  as  a  young  man  on  the  walls,  too,  and  the 

^  Afanasyi    Shenshin    the   poet,    who   adopted    his   mother's   name 

45 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

well-known  group  of  writers  of  the  "Sovremennik"  ^ 
circle  in  1856,  with  Turgenyef,  Ostrovski,  Gont- 
charof,  Grigorovitch,  Druzhinin,  and  my  father, 
quite  young  still,  without  a  beard,  and  in  uniform. 

My  father  used  to  come  out  of  his  bedroom  of  a 
morning — it  was  in  a  comer  on  the  top  floor — in  his 
dressing-gown,  with  his  beard  uncombed  and  tumbled 
together,  and  go  downstairs  to  dress.  Soon  after,  he 
would  issue  from  his  study  fresh  and  vigorous,  in  a 
gray  smock-frock,  and  go  up  into  the  zala  for  break- 
fast.    This  was  our  only  meal  before  dinner. 

When  there  was  nobody  staying  in  the  house  he 
would  not  stop  long  in  the  drawing-room,  but  would 
take  his  tumbler  of  tea  and  carry  it  oif  to  his  study 
with  him.  But  if  there  were  friends  and  guests  with 
us,  he  would  get  interested  in  the  conversation,  and 
not  be  able  to  tear  himself  away.  With  one  hand 
thrust  behind  his  leather  belt,  and  with  the  other 
holding  his  silver  tumbler-socket  in  front  of  him  with 
a  tumbler  full  of  tea  in  it,  he  would  stop  at  the  door 
and  remain  rooted  to  the  same  spot  for  as  much  as 
half  an  hour,  quite  unaware  that  his  tea  was  getting 

Fet,  owing  to  official  difficulties  about  his  birth  certificate.  An 
intimate  friend  of  Tolstoy's.     See  Chapter  XIII,  below. 

"^  The  Sovremennik  or  Contemporary  Re'vieiv,  edited  by  the  poet 
Nekrasof,  was  the  rallying  place  of  the  "men  of  the  forties,"  the 
new  school  of  realists.  Ostrovski  is  the  dramatist ;  Druzhinin, 
the  critic  and  editor;  Gontcharof  the  novelist,  author  of  "Oblo- 
mof" ;  Grigorovitch  wrote  tales  about  peasant  life,  some  of  which 
are  given  in  Beatrix  Tollemache's  "Russian  Sketches,"  1913. 

46 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

perfectly  cold,  and  talk  and  talk,  and  somehow  it  was 
always  just  then  that  the  discussion  grew  most  ani- 
mated and  interesting.  We  all  knew  this  spot  by 
the  door  so  well  and  knew  for  certain  that  when  papa 
reached  it,  with  his  tumbler  full  of  tea  in  his  hand,  he 
was  sure  to  stop  there  with  the  intention  of  clinching 
the  argument  in  a  word  or  two,  and  the  best  part  of 
the  conversation  would  be  only  then  beginning. 

At  last  he  would  go  off  to  his  work,  and  we  all  dis- 
persed, in  winter  to  the  different  school-rooms,  in 
summer  to  the  croquet-lawn  or  somewhere  about  the 
garden.  My  mother  would  settle  down  in  the  zala 
to  make  clothes  for  the  babies,  or  to  copy  out  some- 
thing she  had  not  finished  overnight;  and  till  three  or 
four  in  the  afternoon  silence  reigned  in  the  house. 

Then  my  father  would  come  out  of  his  study  and 
go  off  for  his  afternoon's  exercise.  Sometimes  he 
took  a  dog  and  a  gun  with  him,  sometimes  he  rode 
and  sometimes  he  merely  went  for  a  walk  to  the 
Crown  Wood. 

At  five  the  big  bell  rang  that  hung  on  the  broken 
bough  of  an  old  elm-tree  in  front  of  the  house  and 
we  all  ran  to  wash  our  hands  and  go  in  to  dinner. 

My  father  was  very  hungry  as  a  rule  and  ate  vora- 
ciously whatever  turned  up.  My  mother  would  try 
to  stop  him,  and  tell  him  not  to  waste  all  his  appetite 
on  kasha^  because  there  were  chops  and  vegetables  to 
follow, — "You  '11  have  a  bad  liver  again,"  she  would 

47 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

say,  but  he  paid  no  attention  to  her  and  asked  for 
more  and  more,  until  his  hunger  was  completely  satis- 
fied. Then  he  would  tell  us  all  about  his  walk: 
where  he  had  put  up  a  covey  of  black  game,  what  new 
paths  he  had  discovered  in  the  Crown  Wood  beyond 
Kudeyarof  Well,  or,  if  he  rode,  how  the  young  horse 
he  was  breaking  in  had  begun  to  understand  the  reins 
and  the  pressure  of  the  leg.  He  would  relate  all  this 
in  the  most  vivid  and  entertaining  way,  so  that  the 
time  passed  very  gaily. 

"Mama,  what's  pudding  to-day?"  Tanya,  who 
was  always  bold  and  independent,  would  suddenly 
ask. 

"Ilya's  favorite,  pancakes  and  jam,"  answered  my 
mother  quite  seriously,  not  noticing  the  shade  of 
mischief,  only  too  frequent  in  Tanya's  tone. 

I  was  sitting  beside  papa  perhaps,  and  was  afraid 
to  take  more  than  two  pancakes.  But  it  was  quite 
safe  to  take  it  out  in  jam,  because  one  could  cover 
that  up  quickly  with  the  other  pancake  and  roll  it  all 
up  out  of  sight.  As  soon  as  I  had  it  all  ready  and 
was  about  to  eat  it,  papa  put  out  a  surreptitious  hand, 
snatched  my  plate  away  and  said:  "Come,  you  've 
had  plenty  by  now  I"  I  didn't  know  whether  to 
laugh  or  to  cry.  Fortunately  papa  looked  me  in  the 
eyes  and  burst  out  laughing,  or  else  I  should  have 
started  bellowing. 

After  dinner  he  would  go  back  to  his  room  to  read, 

48 


-^V^iii?:. 


«< 

>■ 

o 


< 
z 

I/; 

c 

U 

Q 


< 


z 

o 

a. 
S 

O 
Z 

H 

< 

H 

1/5 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  at  eight  we  had  tea,  and  the  best  hours  of  the  day 
began — the  evening  hours,  when  everybody  was  gath- 
ered in  the  zala.  The  grown-ups  talked  or  read 
aloud  or  played  the  piano,  and  we  either  listened  to 
them  or  had  some  jolly  game  of  our  own,  and  in 
anxious  fear  awaited  the  moment  when  the  English 
grandfather-clock  on  the  landing  would  give  a  click 
and  a  buzz  and  slowly  and  clearly  chime  out  ten. 

Perhaps  mama  would  not  notice.  She  was  in  the 
small  drawing-room  making  a  fair  copy. 

"Come,  children,  bedtime !     Say  good-night." 

"Oh,  not  yet,  mama;  just  five  minutes." 

"Run  along,  it 's  high  time  you  were  off;  or  there 
will  be  no  getting  you  up  in  the  morning  to  do  3'-our 
lessons." 

We  would  say  a  lingering  good-night,  on  the  look- 
out for  any  chance  of  delay,  and  at  last  would  go 
downstairs  to  the  room  with  the  arches,^  very  much 
aggrieved  that  we  were  children  still  and  had  to  go  to 
bed  while  the  grown-ups  could  stay  up  as  long  as  ever 
they  liked. 

What  did  they  do  when  we  had  gone'?  I  would 
wonder  to  myself. 

You  might  be  sure  that  that  was  the  very  time  that 

8  The  nursery  was  on  the  ground  floor,  under  the  arches  which 
supported  the  "balcony-room."  This  nursery  was  afterwards 
turned  into  Tolstoy's  study,  and  it  is  there  that  he  is  represented 
in  Repin's  famous  portrait  at  his  writing-table,  with  his  scythe 
and  saw  and  shovel  about  him. 

51 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

things  began  to  be  j  oiliest.  Ah,  no  wonder  papa  was 
so  fond  of  saying  "when  I  grow  up"  !  Of  course  that 
was  only  his  joke,  because  he  was  grown  up  and  had 
everything  a  fellow  could  want.  Oh,  why  was  I  not 
like  him'?  He  had  three  guns,  several  Caucasian 
daggers,  some  dogs,  and  a  horse;  and  he  did  n't  have 
to  do  any  lessons ;  while  I  was  still  a  child,  and  should 
remain  one  for  a  long  time,  and  have  to  sleep  in  the 
nursery  in  the  dark,  with  Marya  Afanasyevna  who 
had  just  blown  out  the  tallow  candle  and  told  me  to 
lie  still  and  not  fidget.  "Shall  I  cry?  No,  what 's 
the  use*?  I  '11  stick  my  head  under  the  bed-clothes 
and  go  to  sleep." 

And  I  hardly  had  time  to  shut  my  eyes  and  forget 
where  I  was  before  it  was  morning,  bright  and  happy 
morning.  A  host  of  pleasures  lay  before  me;  in  a 
moment  I  should  get  up  and  dress,  run  out  in  the 
garden,  where  I  and  Tanya  had  dug  a  cellar  and 
storehouse  in  the  ground;  and  then  I  should  go  and 
chase  butterflies  in  the  long  grass  by  the  "Thicket."  ^ 
I  must  certainly  catch  a  swallow-tail,  Seryozha  had 
one  and  I  had  none. 

After  that  would  follow  lessons :  but  that  was  a  de- 
tail ;  there  was  no  need  to  think  about  that;  and  after 
that  breakfast,  a  bath,  dinner.  .  .  . 

How  delightful  life  was  I     How  brightly  the  sun 

^  The  name  given,  for  some  reason,  to  a  wood  of  ancient  oak- 
trees,  near  the  house  at  Yasnaya  Polyana. 

52 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

shone  I  How  loud  the  nightingales  sang  under  my 
windows  I  What  a  multitude  of  pleasures  lay 
ahead  I  .  .  . 


53 


CHAPTER  IV 

CHRISTMAS  TREES.       IT  's  THE  ARCHITECT'S   FAULT. 
PROKHOR.       ANKE  PIE. 

I  RETAIN  very  vivid  recollections  of  the  Christ- 
mas trees  of  our  childhood.  How  gay  it  was 
when  all  the  guests  gathered  at  Christmas,  the 
Dyakofs,  the  Fets,  and  Uncle  Kostya,  bringing  us 
presents  and  heaps  of  sweetmeats ;  for  some  days  we 
lived  in  anxious  expectation  and  preparation,  guess- 
ing what  presents  each  would  get,  and  passed  our  time 
building  castles  in  the  air. 

Already  two  weeks  before  Christmas,  mama  would 
go  into  Tula,  and  buy  a  number  of  rough  wooden 
dolls,  and  we  set  to  work  to  make  dresses  for  them. 
For  this  purpose  she  had  been  collecting  remnants  of 
various  cloths,  scraps  of  ribbon,  and  snippets  of 
chintz  and  velvet,  in  the  chest  of  drawers,  for  a  whole 
year.  She  brought  her  big  black  bundle  trium- 
phantly into  the  zala^  and  we  all  sat  at  the  round 
table,  needle  in  hand,  and  spent  hours  busily  sewing 
various  petticoats,  trowsers,  and  caps,  and  adorning 
them  with  gold  lace  and  ribbon;  and  we  were  de- 
lighted when  the  naked  strips  of  wood,  with  their 

54 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

stupid  painted  faces,  turned  into  elegant,  handsome 
boys  and  girls.  One  could  not  help  thinking  that 
when  they  were  dressed  up,  their  faces  became  more 
intelligent,  and  each  acquired  a  certain  characteristic 
and  interesting  expression.  These  dolls  were  pre- 
pared for  the  village  children;  we  none  of  us  knew 
what  presents  we  were  going  to  get  ourselves. 

On  Christmas  Eve  priests  arrived  and  celebrated 
vespers.  On  Christmas  Day  we  put  on  our  best 
clothes  when  we  got  up,  and  in  the  zala,  instead  of 
the  dining-table,  stood  a  big  bushy  Christmas  tree 
filling  the  whole  room  with  a  pleasant  wild  forest 
smell  of  fir  needles.  We  hurried  over  dinner,  anx- 
ious to  get  done  as  quickly  as  possible  and  run  back 
to  our  part  of  the  house.  Then  the  doors  of  the 
zala  were  locked  and  the  grown-ups  decorated  the 
Christmas  tree  and  spread  out  our  presents  on  little 
tables.  Twenty  times  in  the  afternoon  we  would 
go  running  to  the  door  to  ask  If  it  would  soon  be 
ready  and  peep  through  the  key-hole,  and  the  time 
passed  very  very  slowly. 

At  last  we  were  called.  The  door  into  the  small 
drawing-room  was  unlocked  and  we  all  rushed 
through  higgledy-piggledy  into  the  zala. 

We  were  dazzled  by  the  brilliant  blaze  of  the 
Christmas-tree  candles  and  stood  bewildered,  not 
knowing  what  to  do  next.  But  this  lasted  only  for 
a  second;  one  soon  recovered  one's  wits,  and  went 

55 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

to  look  for  one's  own  table  on  which  one's  presents 
were  laid  neatly  out;  a  doll  that  shut  its  eyes,  a  big 
pencil,  a  calendar,  a  pen-knife,  a  kitchen  range  with 
pots  and  pans,  and  so  on.  One  examined  every- 
thing carefully  and  ran  to  see  what  Tanya  and 
Seryozha  had  got.  Their  presents  were  better  still. 
Tanya's  doll  was  bigger  than  mine,  and  shut  its  eyes 
like  mine  when  you  laid  it  flat;  but  besides  that  there 
were  two  strings  under  its  frock  with  blue  beads  at 
the  end  and  when  you  pulled  them  it  cried  'papa' 
and  'mama.'  Seryozha  had  a  gun  which  fired  off  a 
cork  with  a  loud  pop,  and  a  tin  watch  with  a  chain 
to  it. 

Meanwhile  mama  was  distributing  dolls  and 
gingerbread  to  the  village  children.  They  had  been 
let  in  by  another  door,  and  stood  close  together 
on  the  right  hand  side  of  the  Christmas  tree,  with- 
out coming  over  to  our  part  of  the  room. 

"Give  me  a  doll,  Auntie;  Vanka  has  got  one;  I  've 
got  nothing  yet." 

"Wait  a  bit,  wait  a  bit,  the  little  ones  first,  the 
big  ones  afterwards.  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
play  with  dolls,  a  great  big  boy  like  you;  wait  a 
bit;  if  they  go  round,  you  shall  have  one  too,"  said 
mama  to  pacify  him,  trying  to  be  fair  to  every  one. 

Then  one  of  the  grown-ups  sat  down  at  the  piano 
and  struck  up  a  lively  trepak} 

1  Trepak,  a  sort  of  brisk  tripudium,  with  plenty  of  stampiiig  in  it. 

56 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Suddenly  every  one  made  way  for  an  old  man  who 
appeared  from  no  one  knows  where,  with  a  long  tow- 
beard,  leading  a  bear  on  a  rope. 

"  Come  along,  Misha,^  give  us  a  dance  I  Show 
us  how  the  village  children  steal  peas  from  the 
kitchen  garden  I  Show  us  how  the  old  woman  turns 
over  on  the  top  of  the  stove  I  Show  us  how  the  vil- 
lage girls  paint  their  faces  with  white  and  red," 
he  said,  putting  on  a  deep  bass  voice,  and  the  bear 
danced  and  crawled  and  lay  down  on  one  side  and 
turned  slowly  over.  We  looked  round  at  all  the 
grown-ups  to  make  sure  whether  they  were  all  still 
there,  and  suddenly  noticed  that  papa  was  missing. 
He  had  been  there  a  moment  ago  and  we  had  never 
noticed  him  go.  Then  we  guessed  that  this  was  he, 
playing  the  bear  in  a  fur  coat  turned  inside  out,  and 
we  were  no  longer  afraid  of  the  bear,  but  came  boldly 
up  and  stroked  his  shaggy  coat. 

The  first  Christmas  tree  I  remember  was  in  the 
balcony  room  which  my  father  used  as  a  study  in 
later  years.  After  that  it  was  always  in  the  newly- 
built  zala. 

I  was  five  years  old  then. 

That  year  I  was  given  a  big  porcelain  tea  cup  and 
saucer.  Mama  knew  that  a  tea  cup  and  saucer 
had  long  been  the  dream  of  my  life  and  she  got  it 
for  me  as  a  Christmas  present.     When  I  saw  the 

2  Misha,  diminutive  of  Michael,  the  Christian  name  of  all  bears. 

57 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

cup  on  my  table  I  did  not  stop  to  examine  the  rest 
of  my  presents,  but  caught  it  up  in  both  hands  and 
ran  to  show  it  to  the  others.  As  I  ran  across  from 
the  zala  into  the  small  drawing-room,  I  caught  my 
foot  on  the  step  in  the  doorway  and  fell  down,  and 
my  teacup  was  smashed  to  smithereens. 

Of  course  I  set  up  a  loud  howl  and  pretended  that 
I  was  much  worse  hurt  than  I  really  v/as.  Mama 
came  running  to  comfort  me  and  said  that  it  was 
my  own  fault  because  I  had  been  careless.  This 
made  me  very  angry  and  I  bellowed  that  it  was  not 
my  fault  but  the  fault  of  the  beastly  architect,  who 
had  gone  and  put  a  step  in  the  doorway,  and  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  step  I  should  never  have  tumbled 
down. 

Papa  overheard  this  and  burst  out  laughing: 
"It 's  the  architect's  fault,  it 's  the  architect's  fault  I" 
and  I  felt  angrier  than  ever  and  could  not  forgive 
him  for  laughing  at  me. 

The  phrase  "It 's  the  architect's  fault"  was  thence- 
forth adopted  as  a  saying  in  our  family,  and  papa 
was  fond  of  repeating  it  whenever  any  one  tried  to 
throw  the  blame  for  anything  on  anybody  else. 

When  I  fell  off  my  horse  "because  he  stumbled" 
or  "because  the  coachman  had  not  strapped  on  the 
saddle-cloth  tight  enough,"  or  when  I  did  my  lessons 
badly  "because  my  tutor  had  n't  explained  them 
properly,"  or  when  I  was  doing  my  military  service 

i8 


THE    VILLAGE    LIBRARY   AND    LIBRARIAN    AT   YASNAYA    POLYANA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  had  bouts  of  drinking  and  blamed  army  life  for 
it — on  these  and  all  similar  occasions  my  father  used 
to  say,  "Of  course,  I  know,  it 's  the  architect's  fault," 
and  one  always  had  to  give  in  and  confess  oneself  in 
the  wrong. 

Papa  had  a  number  of  such  sayings  taken  from 
actual  events. 

Another  of  them  was :  "For  Prokhor's  sake."  I 
rather  think  he  has  himself  told  about  the  origin  of 
this  saying  somewhere,  probably  in  one  of  his  letters. 

When  I  was  a  child  I  was  taught  to  play  the  piano. 

I  was  very  lazy  and  always  played  abominably; 
so  long  as  I  could  strum  out  my  hour's  practice  and 
get  away,  I  was  content. 

All  of  a  sudden  one  day  papa  heard  the  most  bril- 
liant runs  and  trills  being  executed  in  the  zala  and 
could  not  believe  from  the  evidence  of  his  ears  that 
it  was  Ilyusha  playing. 

When  he  came  into  the  room  and  saw  that  it 
really  was  me  playing,  he  also  found  Prokhor  the 
carpenter  busy  at  the  window,  putting  in  the  winter 
frames.^     Then  he  understood  why  I  was  trying  so 

3  Russian  windows  are  constructed  with  an  embrasure  deep 
enough  to  allow  of  another  window,  the  "winter  frame,"  being  put 
in,  sash  and  glass  complete,  about  a  foot  inside  the  ordinary 
window.  The  cracks  are  papered  over  to  keep  out  draughts,  and 
some  moisture-absorbing  substance  stands  in  pots  between  the  two 
frames  to  prevent  the  glass  from  getting  foggy.  Communication 
with  the  outer  air  is  effected  by  means  of  the  vasisfas  or  practicable 
pane,  corresponding  in  each  frame,  which  opens  like  a  little  door. 

61 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

hard  to  do  my  best.  I  was  playing  "for  Prokhor's 
sake." 

Many  a  time  afterwards  did  this  "Prokhor"  fill  a 
big  part  in  my  life ;  many  a  time  did  my  father  re- 
proach me  with  that  phrase. 

There  was  a  good  phrase  of  my  father's  which  he 
was  fond  of  repeating,  at  first  with  good-natured 
irony,  but  latterly  with  a  certain  bitterness.  That 
was  "Anke  Pie." 

My  mother's  parents  had  a  friend  called  Dr.  Anke, 
a  Professor  at  the  University,  and  he  gave  my  grand- 
mother, Lyubov  Alexandrovna  Behrs,  a  recipe  for  a 
delicious  name-day  pie.  When  she  married  and 
came  to  Yasnaya  Polyana,  mama  handed  this  recipe 
on  to  Nikolai  the  cook. 

Ever  since  I  can  remember,  at  all  the  ceremonial 
functions  of  our  life,  on  the  great  feast  days  and  on 
name-days,  Anke  Pie  was  always  dished  up  for  a 
sweet.  Without  this  pie,  the  dinner  would  only 
have  been  half  a  dinner,  and  the  festival  no  festival 
at  all.  A  poor  sort  of  name-day  it  would  have  been 
without  a  ring-cake  sprinkled  with  almond-chips  at 
breakfast  and  without  Anke  Pie  for  the  even- 
ing meal!  It  would  have  been  no  better  than 
Christmas  without  a  Christmas  tree,  Easter  with- 
out Easter  eggs  to  roll,'*  a  nurse  without  a  kokosh- 

*  Easter  eggs  are  rolled  by  the  children  onto  the  floor  down  a 
little  wooden  gutter  or  trough  set  slanting  against  the  wall.  There 
is  some  recondite  magical  significance  in  the  ceremony. 

62 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

nik^^  or  quass  without  raisins.  Without  that  there 
would  have  been  no  sanctity  about  it. 

Every  sort  of  family  tradition — and  my  mother 
brought  a  large  number  into  the  house  with  her — 
was  known  to  my  father  as  "Anke  Pie." 

When  Nikolai  the  cook  died,  Dr.  Anke's  recipe 
was  passed  on  to  his  son,  Semyon,  and  I  shall  not  be 
astonished  on  the  20th  of  July,  my  name-day,  if  I 
go  to  Yasnaya  Polyana,  to  find  standing  on  the  table, 
sprinkled  with  almond-chips,  "short"  and  full  of 
flavor,  a  ceremonial  Anke  Pie  to  welcome  me. 

^  Kokoshnik.  The  crest  or  tiara  of  traditional  Russian  women's 
costume.  Wet-nurses  always  wear  the  old-fashioned  national 
costume. 


63 


CHAPTER  V 

AUNT      TANYA.       UNCLE      KOSTYA.       THE      DYAKOFS. 

PRINCE    URUSOF. 

IN  the  summer  almost  every  year  the  Kuzminskis 
used  to  stay  with  us  at  Yasnaya.  Aunt  Tanya 
Kuzminski  my  mother's  sister  is  still  our  favor- 
ite aunt.  At  one  time  Uncle  Sasha  Kuzminski  used 
to  work  at  Tula  and  I  can  dimly  remember  how  we 
used  to  go  and  visit  him.  After  that  he  worked  in 
various  towns  and  his  family  used  to  come  and  visit 
us  only  in  the  summer. 

I  cannot  remember  my  eldest  cousin  Dasha,  the 
one  who  died  in  the  Caucasus,  but  we  were  very 
great  friends  with  the  other  two,  Masha  and  Vera, 
and  they  were  almost  like  members  of  our  own 
family. 

My  aunt  was  ver}^^  gay  and  full  of  life  and  to  our 
childish  imagination  she  seemed  to  be  no  less  beauti- 
ful than  mama. 

When  I  was  still  a  child  and  had  not  yet  read 
"War  and  Peace,"  I  was  told  that  Natasha  Rostof 
was  Aunt  Tanya.  When  my  father  was  asked 
whether  that  was  true,  and  whether  Dmitry  Rostof 

64 


o 

Oh 


< 

'7) 


S 

72 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

was  such  and  such  a  person  and  Levin  such  and  such 
another,  he  never  gave  a  definite  answer,  and  one 
could  not  but  feel  that  he  disliked  such  questions  and 
was  rather  offended  by  them.  He  used  to  say  that  a 
writer  forms  his  types  from  a  whole  series  of  people, 
and  they  never  can  or  ought  to  be  portraits  of  partic- 
ular individuals.  And  this  of  course  is  true.  Aunt 
Tanya  recalled  the  type  of  Natasha  Rostof  in  many 
respects,  but  when  I  first  read  "War  and  Peace"  I 
was  struck  by  the  idea  that  the  other  Tanya,  my 
sixteen-year-old  sister,  was  much  more  like  Natasha 
than  my  aunt,  whom  I  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of 
mother,  and  I  was  astonished  that  my  father  should 
have  written  it  when  my  sister  Tanya  was  still  quite 
a  baby  and  that  he  should  have  divined  her  future 
character  so  accurately. 

Aunt  Tanya  was  great  friends  not  only  with  papa 
and  mama  but  with  all  of  us  children.  We  used  to 
go  fishing  with  her  in  the  Grumont  and  the  Voronka, 
rode  together,  went  mushroom-hunting  together  and 
were  always  more  than  delighted  when  she  invited 
us  to  dine  with  her  in  "the  other  house." 

Of  an  evening  when  we  were  all  gathered  in  the 
zala  we  used  to  get  her  to  sing  and  honestly  believed 
that  no  one  in  the  whole  world  sang  better  than  she 
did.  Papa  often  used  to  play  her  accompaniments. 
I  can  still  see  him  with  his  back  bent  over  the  key- 
board, all  tense  with  the  exertion,  and  our  beautiful 

67 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

inspired  Aunt  Tanya  standing  by  him  with  her  eye- 
brows uplifted  and  a  radiant  expression  in  her  eyes, 
and  I  can  hear  her  pure,  rather  vibrating,  and  caress- 
ing voice.  She  sang  Glinka's  and  Dargomyzhki's 
best  ballads  and  I  never  heard  any  one  sing  "I  remem- 
ber the  wonderful  moment"  or  "When  in  an  hour  of 
gaiety"  better  than  she  did. 

When  my  father  married  my  mother,  he  was 
thirty-four,*  and  Aunt  Tanya  was  still  a  girl,  almost 
a  child.  Although  as  time  passes  the  difference  of 
years  gets  wiped  out,  one  felt  that  papa  always  looked 
on  Aunt  Tanya  semi-paternally  as  a  sort  of  youngster, 
and  she  loved  and  respected  him  as  an  elder.  The  re- 
lations between  them  were  therefore  on  a  very  sure 
and  pleasant  footing,  and  remained  so  till  the  end  of 
his  life.  My  father  always  responded  to  her  out- 
bursts of  unexpected  plain  speaking,  provoked  by 
little  household  unpleasantnesses,  with  jovial  good- 
humor  and  playfulness,  and  would  at  last  bring  her 
round,  so  that  she  would  first  give  a  rather  sulky 
smile,  and  then  melt  altogether,  and  join  in  his  laugh. 

Unlike  my  mother,  Aunt  Tanya  could  understand 
a  joke  and  answer  back  in  the  same  vein.  Later  on, 
in  the  Chapter  about  the  Letter-box,^  I  shall  repro- 
duce an  extremely  clever  satire  called  "What  Aunt 
Sonya  likes  and  what  Aunt  Tanya  likes."     The 

1  His  wife  being  only  seventeen. 

2  Chapter  XI. 

68 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

author  of  it  is  unidentified.  Was  it  not  Aunt  Tanya 
herself  who  wrote  it^ 

Aunt  Tanya  was  united  to  my  mother  not  only  by 
sisterly  affection,  but  also  by  common  interests. 
They  were  both  devoted  to  their  families  and  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  the  bringing  up  of  their  children. 

When  my  mother  and  Aunt  Tanya  were  both 
nursing  children  at  the  same  time,  if  ever  it  happened 
that  one  of  them  had  to  go  away  for  a  few  hours, 
the  other  would  take  both  children  to  her  breast. 

•  ••••••• 

I  can  remember  Uncle  Kostya  Islavin  from  my 
earliest  days.  He  was  my  mother's  uncle  and  a 
friend  of  childhood  of  my  father's. 

His  father  A.  M.  Islenyef's  property  "Krasnoye" 
was  only  sixteen  miles  from  Yasnaya  Polyana  and 
the  families  of  Tolstoy  and  Islenyef  were  old  and  tra- 
ditional friends.  I  can  remember  my  great-grand- 
father Alexander  Mikhailovitch  as  an  old  man  of 
ninety  when  he  visited  us  at  Yasnaya  and  I  can  re- 
member how  he  rode  out  coursing  with  the  grey- 
hounds with  papa  and  Seryozha.  He  was  a  tre- 
mendous gambler  and  had  lost  the  whole  of  his  big 
property  at  cards. 

I  did  not  learn  till  later  that  Uncle  Kostya  was 
not  his  legitimate  son,  and  that  all  his  life  had  been 
ruined  by  his  having  no  fortune  and  no  social  po- 
sition. 

69 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Uncle  Kostya  always  used  to  arrive  quite  unex- 
pectedly and  he  delighted  in  taking  us  all  by  surprise. 
We  would  come  back  from  our  walk  one  day  and 
hear  some  one  playing  the  piano  very  brilliantly  in 
the  zala. 

Papa  at  once  guessed:  "There 's  Kostenka"  and 
ran  upstairs  to  greet  him.  WTien  we  got  into  the 
room  the  music  bad  stopped  and  Uncle  Kostya  was 
standing  on  his  head  in  a  comer  of  the  room. 

Or  we  would  come  into  break:<^ast  one  morning  and 
find  Uncle  Kostya  sitting  at  the  table  reading  the 
newspaper  with  an  air  of  great  solemnity.  No  one 
had  noticed  his  arrival  or  could  imagine  how  he  had 
had  time  to  have  a  bath  and  part  his  handsome  blond 
beard  so  carefully. 

Uncle  K6st)'a  seemed  to  us  to  be  the  acme  of  ele- 
gance and  fashion.  No  one  could  talk  French  so 
well  as  he  could,  no  one  could  make  such  a  beautiful 
bow  or  say  the  right  word  of  greeting  so  aptly,  or 
always  be  so  uniformly  agreeable.  Even  when  he 
was  finding  fault  with  one  of  us  about  our  manners 
the  rebuke  always  came  so  mildly  from  his  lips  that 
it  left  nothing  but  a  pleasant  flavor. 

He  used  to  come  to  us  for  Christmas  or  for  any 
family  festival  and  often  stayed  quite  a  long  time. 

When  our  family  moved  into  Moscow,  Uncle 
Kostya  helped  mama  to  furnish  the  flat,  gave  her 
advice  when  she  first  went  into  the  world  of  fashion 

70 


UNCLE    KOSTYA    ISLAVIN 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  was  of  great  use  to  her  in  many  ways.  He  was 
only  too  delighted  to  act  as  master  of  the  ceremonies. 

He  was  always  very  fond  of  us  children.  He 
used  to  tell  me  that  in  my  physique  and  character  he 
saw  a  strain  of  both  my  grandfathers,  on  the  Tolstoy 
and  Islenyef  sides. 

Uncle  Kostya  was  a  musician  of  remarkable  talent. 
Nikolai  Rubinstein,^  with  whom  he  was  at  one  time 
intimate,  prophesied  a  brilliant  musical  career  for 
him.  But  unfortunately,  Uncle  Kostya  did  not  fol- 
low this  line  up  and  to  the  end  of  his  days  he  re- 
mained an  unsuccessful  man,  always  solitary  and  in 
straitened  circumstances. 

Papa  got  him  a  place  on  the  editorial  staff  of  the 
Moskovskiya  Vyedomosti  through  Katkof,^  and  he 
remained  there  for  a  considerable  time.  Then  he  got 
a  job  as  superintendent  of  the  Sheremetyef  Hos-pital 
and  ended  his  days  there  about  fifteen  years  ago. 

He  left  absolutely  no  property  behind  him.  He 
even  had  hardly  any  shirts  or  linen.  It  appeared 
that  everything  he  had  he  used  to  give  away  to  the 
poor.  And  neither  the  acquaintances  whom  he  met 
from  day  to  day  in  fashionable  drawing-rooms,  al- 
ways beautifully  dressed,  nor  his  intimate  friends, 
ever  suspected  that  this  handsome  and  kindly  old 

3  This  is  not  the  famous  Rubinstein,  but  his  brother,  who  was 
head  of  the  "Musical  Society"  in  Moscow. 

■*  The  well-known  Panslavist  editor,  friend  and  adviser  of  Alex- 
ander III. 

73 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

gentleman  had  absolutely  nothing  in  the  world  but 
what  he  carried  on  him,  and  that  he  had  given  every- 
thing else  away  to  people  as  unfortunate  as  himself. 

•  ••••••• 

Of  all  the  visitors  of  the  earliest  period  of  our 
childhood  we  were  fonder  of  the  Dyakofs  than  of  any 
one  else :  namely  my  godfather  Dmitry  Alexeyevitch, 
his  grown-up  daughter  Masha,  and  her  companion 
Sophie.  They  almost  always  came  together  and  for 
many  years  were  always  present  at  all  our  Christmas 
trees.  I  can  still  remember  the  beautiful  presents 
they  used  to  bring  us. 

Dmitry  Alexeyevitch  was,  like  Uncle  Kostya,  one 
of  my  father's  oldest  friends.  We  were  astonished 
when  papa  used  to  tell  us  that  he  could  remember 
him  as  a  very  slim  young  man.  This  was  very  hard 
to  believe,  because  when  we  knew  him,  Dmitry 
Alexeyevitch  was  the  stoutest  man  we  knew.  He 
had  such  a  round  elastic  stomach  that  with  one  jerk 
of  his  abdominal  muscles  he  could  send  a  man  flying 
across  the  room  like  an  india-rubber  ball. 

Whenever  he  arrived  the  whole  house  was  ani- 
mated by  his  good-humored  fun  and  became  the 
gayest  place  imaginable.  We  all  sat  listening 
eagerly  for  his  jokes,  at  which  everybody  was  de- 
lighted; we  all  used  to  roar  with  laughter  when  they 
came,  papa  louder  than  any  one.  Sometimes  he  sang 
Glinka  duets  with  Aunt  Tanya  and  this  was  really 

74 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

first  rate.  "What  a  wonderful  fellow  Dmitry  is! 
How  capitally  he  sings !"  said  my  father.  We  were 
in  ecstasy  and  begged  him  to  sing  his  songs  over  and 
over  again. 

Besides  being  great  personal  friends  he  and  papa 
had  another  bond  of  union  in  the  interest  they  both 
took  in  the  management  of  their  estates.  The 
Dyakofs  had  a  big  and  admirably  organized  property 
in  the  Novosi'lsk  district,  which  Dmitry  Alexeyevitch 
looked  after  like  a  model  squire. 

In  those  remote  days  about  which  I  am  talking,  my 
father  was  extremely  interested  in  the  management  of 
his  property  and  devoted  a  great  deal  of  energy  to  it. 
I  can  remember  his  planting  the  huge  apple-orchard 
at  Yasnaya,  besides  several  hundred  acres  of  birch 
and  pine  forest,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventies, 
for  a  number  of  years,  he  was  interested  in  buying 
land  cheap  in  the  province  of  Samara,  and  breeding 
droves  of  steppe  horses  and  flocks  of  sheep. 

Dyakof  never  shared  my  father's  philosophical  and 
religious  convictions,  and  the  longer  they  lived,  the 
greater  and  greater  was  the  division  of  opinion  be- 
tween them.  I  think  the  explanation  of  their  con- 
tinued friendship  was  their  having  been  friends  as 
children.  My  father  set  great  store  by  his  old 
friends  and  entertained  the  warmest  and  most  cordial 
affection  for  them. 

At  this  period  of  my  life  I  can  also  remember 

75 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Prince  Sergei  Semyonovitch  Urusof.  He  was  a 
very  odd  and  original  man.  He  was  almost  a  giant 
in  stature.  At  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War  he  was 
in  command  of  a  regiment  and  I  am  told  he  made 
himself  remarkable  by  his  extraordinary  courage. 
He  used  to  climb  out  of  the  trenches  and  walk  up 
and  down,  dressed  all  in  white,  in  a  perfect  rain  of 
shells  and  bullets. 

The  story  was — I  remember  his  telling  it  to  me 
himself — that  when  the  troops  were  going  South, 
and  a  General  who  was  reviewing  his  regiment 
abused  one  of  the  soldiers  like  a  pickpocket  for  hav- 
ing lost  a  button  off  his  uniform,  Urusof  called  out 
to  the  soldier,  "Fire  at  him  I"  The  soldier  fired  at 
the  General  as  he  was  told,  but  of  course  took  good 
care  not  to  hit  him. 

Urusof  was  deprived  of  his  command  for  this  and 
was  to  have  been  dismissed  from  the  army,  but  he 
was  ultimately  forgiven. 

During  the  siege  of  Sebastopol  he  proposed  to  the 
Allies  to  avoid  bloodshed  by  deciding  the  dispute 
with  a  game  of  chess.  He  was  a  very  good  chess 
player  and  could  easily  give  my  father  a  knight  and 
beat  him. 

We  children  were  rather  afraid  of  him  because  he 
had  the  St.  George's  Cross  ^  at  his  buttonhole,  spoke 

^  St.    George's   Cross,  the  Russian   reward   "for  valour."        (The 
allusion  being  to  the  English  Victoria  cross.) 

76 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

in  a  deep  bass  voice,  and  was  of  such  gigantic  size. 
In  spite  of  his  inches  he  always  wore  enormous  heels 
to  make  himself  bigger  and  I  remember  his  once 
scolding  me  for  not  wearing  them  too.  "How  can 
you  make  such  a  guy  of  yourself?"  he  said,  pointing 
at  my  shoes.  "A  man's  beauty  lies  in  his  stature, 
and  every  one  ought  to  wear  big  heels." 

Somehow  or  other,  by  means  of  the  higher  mathe- 
matics, he  used  to  calculate  the  length  of  every  one's 
life,  and  he  averred  that  he  knew  when  my  father 
and  mother  would  die,  but  he  kept  the  secret  to  him- 
self and  told  no  one. 

He  was  strictly  Orthodox  by  conviction.  I  do  not 
know  whether  he  had  any  influence  on  my  father  at 
the  time  when  he  set  out  on  the  search  for  a  religion 
and  began  first  by  looking  for  it  in  the  Orthodox 
church,  but  I  think  it  quite  probable  that  Urusof  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  it. 


77 


CHAPTER  VI 

JOURNEY    TO    SAMARA 

I  STILL  have  pretty  clear,  though  rather  frag- 
mentary and  inconsequent  recollections  of  our 
three  summer  excursions  to  the  Steppes  of 
Samara. 

My  father  had  already  been  there  before  his  mar- 
riage in  1862  and  went  there  again  afterwards  by  the 
advice  of  Dr.  Zakharyin  ^  who  attended  him.  He 
took  the  koumiss-cure  ^  in  1871  and  1872,  and  at  last 
in  1873  the  whole  family  went  there. 

At  that  time  my  father  had  bought  several  hundred 
acres  of  cheap  Bashkir  lands  in  the  district  of  Buzu- 
liik  and  we  went  to  stay  on  our  new  property  at  a 
khutor  or  farm. 

I  particularly  remember  our  first  expedition.  We 
went  by  way  of  Moscow  and  Nizhny  Novgorod  and 
thence  down  the  Volga  to  Samara  on  a  splendid 
steamer  belonging  to  the  "Caucasus  &  Mercury  Com- 
pany." 

1  The  same  Dr.  Zakharyin  who  attended  Alexander  III  and  was 
greatly  blamed  for  telling  him  of  his  approaching  death. 

2  Koumiss  is  fermented  mare's  milk,  drunk  by  the  Tartars  as 
it  was  by  the  Scythians.  Europeans  go  to  the  steppes  to  drink  it 
as  a  cure  for  consumption  and  other  wasting  diseases. 

78 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

The  captain  of  the  steamer,  who  was  very  charm- 
ing and  delightful,  turned  out  to  be  a  Sebastopol  man, 
a  comrade  of  my  father's  in  the  Crimean  War. 

We  touched  at  Kazan  in  the  daytime. 

While  the  steamer  was  standing  at  the  wharf  we 
three,  papa,  Seryozha,  and  I,  went  for  a  walk  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  town,  near  the  wharf. 

My  father  wanted  to  have  a  look,  however  dis- 
tant, at  the  town  where  he  had  once  been  a  Univer- 
sity student.^'*  We  did  not  notice  how  the  time 
passed  in  conversation,  and  we  walked  a  considerable 
distance. 

When  we  got  back  we  found  that  the  steamer  had 
gone  quite  a  long  time  ago;  the  people  there  showed 
us  a  little  receding  speck  in  the  distance  on  the  river. 
My  father  ejaculated  and  groaned  a  great  deal,  and 
asked  if  there  were  not  any  other  steamers  going  in 
the  same  direction;  but  it  appeared  that  all  the  steam- 
ers of  other  companies  had  already  gone  and  we  must 
stay  in  Kazan  and  wait  till  the  next  day.  Then 
papa  found  that  he  had  not  any  money  on  him.  He 
began  to  groan  again  and  of  course  I  bellowed  like  a 
calf.  For  my  mother  and  Aunt  Tanya  and  all  the 
party  had  gone  off  on  the  steamer  and  we  were  left 
alone. 

-a  Tolstoy  entered  at  Kazan  University  In  1843,  when  he  was 
fifteen,  and  spent  three  years  there.  He  took  his  degree  in  law 
at  St.  Petersburg  University  in  1848,  three  years  before  he  joined 
the  array. 

79 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

A  crowd  of  sympathetic  people  gathered  round 
and  tried  to  comfort  me. 

Suddenly  some  one  observed  that  the  little  spot, 
our  steamer,  on  which  we  had  our  eyes  fixed  all  the 
time,  was  beginning  to  get  bigger  and  bigger  instead 
of  smaller  and  smaller,  and  it  soon  became  evident 
that  it  had  turned  round  and  was  coming  towards  us. 

A  few  minutes  later  it  came  alongside  and  took  us 
on  board  and  we  continued  our  journey. 

Papa  was  quite  upset  by  the  obligingness  of  the 
Captain  in  coming  back  to  fetch  us  at  my  mother's 
request;  he  wanted  to  pay  for  the  extra  wood  that 
had  been  burned  in  the  boilers  and  did  not  know  how 
to  thank  him  enough.  Now  that  the  steamer  had 
come  back  for  him,  he  groaned  still  louder  than  when 
it  was  going  away,  and  was  quite  out  of  countenance. 

From  Samara  our  party  traveled  eighty  miles  by 
road  in  a  huge  dormeuse  with  six  horses  and  a  postil- 
ion, and  in  several  two-horse  wicker-work  chaises. 
My  mother  who  was  then  nursing  my  little  brother 
Peter — he  died  that  autumn — rode  in  the  dormeuse 
with  the  younger  ones,  Lyolya  and  Masha,  while  we 
others,  I  and  Seryozha  and  Tanya,  changed  about, 
sometimes  in  papa's  chaise,  sometimes  on  the  box  of 
the  dormeuse^  and  sometimes  in  the  two-seated  dicky 
attached  to  the  back  of  it. 

In  Samara  we  lived  on  the  farm,  in  a  tumble-down 
wooden  house,  and  beside  us,  in  the  steppe,  were 

80 


w 
H 

a 
r 
PI 

> 

> 
> 

O 

r 
z 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

erected  two  felt  kibitkas^^  in  which  our  Bashkir, 
Muhammed  Shah  Romany tch,  lived  with  his  wives. 
Morning  and  evening  they  used  to  tie  the  mares  up 
outside  the  kibztkas^  where  they  were  milked  by 
veiled  women,  who  then  hid  themselves  within  from 
the  sight  of  men,  behind  a  gaudy  chintz  curtain,  and 
made  the  koumiss. 

The  koumiss  was  bitter  and  very  nasty;  but  my 
father  and  Styopa  ^  were  very  fond  of  it  and  drank 
it  in  large  quantities. 

They  used  to  go  into  the  kibitka  and  squat  cross- 
legged  on  cushions  ranged  in  a  semi-circle  on  a 
Persian  carpet.  Muhammed  Shah  Romanytch 
would  greet  them  with  a  smile  of  his  toothless  old 
mouth,  and  from  behind  the  curtain  an  invisible 
woman's  hand  would  push  out  a  leather  tursuk  ''  full 
of  koumiss. 

The  Bashkir  beat  it  up  with  a  peculiar  kind  of 
stirrer,  took  a  ladle  of  Carelian  birch-wood,  and  be- 
gan solemnly  to  pour  out  the  foaming  white  liquor 
into  the  cups.  The  cups  were  also  of  Carelian  birch 
and  all  of  different  shapes  and  sizes.  Some  were 
broad  and  flat,  others  were  narrow  and  deep.  Papa 
would    take    the    biggest    cup    between    his    hands 

3  Kibttkas,  Tartar  frame-tents,  a  name  also  applied  to  their  trav- 
eling-wagons, similarly  tilted. 

*  Stephen  Behrs,  the  Countess's  brother. 

s  Tursuk,  a  triangular  horse-leather  drinking  pouch  which  the 
Bashkirs  and  Kirgizes  carry  at  the  saddle. 

83 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  drink  it  right  off  at  one  draught.  Romanytch 
would  fill  it  up  again  and  again,  and  my  father  often 
drank  eight  cups  or  more  at  a  sitting. 

"Why  don't  you  drink  too,  Ilyusha'?  Just  see 
how  delicious  it  is,"  he  said  to  me,  holding  out  a 
brimming  cup.  "Just  drink  it  right  off  and  you  '11 
never  stop  asking  for  it." 

With  a  great  effort  over  myself  I  drank  a  few  sips, 
jumped  up  and  rushed  out  of  the  kibitka  to  spit  it 
out,  so  disgusting  did  it  taste  and  smell  to  me.  But 
papa  and  Styopa  and  even  Seryozha  drank  it  three 
times  a  day. 

At  that  time  my  father  was  very  much  interested 
in  farming  and  especially  in  horse-breeding.  Our 
kosydks  or  droves  of  mares  ranged  in  the  steppe,  and 
a  stallion  went  with  every  drove.  The  horses  were 
very  miscellaneous ;  there  were  English  hunters,  stal- 
lions of  the  old-fashioned  Rostoptchin  breeds,  trot- 
ters, Bashkirs,  and  argamdks^ 

Our  stud  afterwards  increased  to  four  hundred,  but 
then  came  several  bad  years,  many  of  the  horses 
perished,  and  in  the  eighties  the  whole  enterprise 
somehow  melted  away. 

But  we  still  kept  some  of  the  horses  which  had  been 
brought  from  Samara  at  Yasnaya  Polyana.  They 
were  wonderfully  good  saddle-horses;  we  rode  them 

®  Long-limbed  horses,  originally  of  Circassian  breed. 

84 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

for  many  a  year,  and  their  descendants  are  still  living 
to  this  day. 

My  father  organized  some  horse-races  that  sum- 
mer. 

He  had  a  ring  of  two  miles  measured  out  and 
marked  with  a  plough-furrow  and  word  was  sent  to 
all  the  Bashkirs  and  Kirgizes  of  the  neighborhood 
that  there  were  to  be  races  and  prizes. 

The  prizes  were  a  gun,  a  silk  khalat  "^  and  a  silver 
watch. 

In  order  to  be  exact,  I  must  mention  that  we  also 
had  horse-races  on  our  second  visit  to  Samara  in 
1875,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  I  may  have  mixed 
them  up  and  shall  be  telling  here  what  really  hap- 
pened the  second  time.  But  the  confusion  is  unim- 
portant. 

A  day  or  two  before  the  appointed  time  the  Bash- 
kirs began  to  come  in  with  their  kibitkas^  their  wives, 
and  their  horses.  Side  by  side  with  Muhammed 
Shah  Romanytch's  kibitka  there  rose  a  whole  village 
of  felt-covered  kibitkas  in  the  steppe,  and  beside  each 
of  them  the  Tartars  made  pickets  for  their  horses  and 
constructed  earthen  stoves  to  prepare  their  food  in. 

The  steppe  was  all  alive. 

Women  with  veiled  heads  glided  mysteriously  to 

'  Khalat,  a  Tartar  word,  from  the  Arabic,  for  the  long  gown 
worn  by  the  Tartars;  also  used  in  Russian  for  an  ordinary  dressing- 
gown. 

85 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  fro  among  the  kibitkas;  portly  and  dignified 
Bashkirs  were  to  be  seen  walking  up  and  down;  and 
the  horses  training  for  the  race  whirled  by  in  the 
open  accompanied  by  the  loud  whooping  of  their 
riders. 

Two  da5^s  were  spent  in  feasting  and  preparing  for 
the  race.  The  Tartars  drank  an  enormous  quantity 
of  koumiss  and  ate  fifteen  sheep  and  a  horse,  a  lame 
English  colt  which  had  been  fattened  on  pur- 
pose. 

In  the  evenings,  when  it  grew  cool  after  the  sultri- 
ness of  day,  all  the  men  in  their  curious  many-colored 
khalats  and  embroidered  skull-caps  gathered  together 
for  bouts  of  wrestling  and  cock-fighting. 

My  father  was  stronger  than  any  of  them  and 
pulled  all  the  Bashkirs  over  at  cock-fighting  on  a 
stick.^ 

A  certain  Russian  peasant-mayor  who  weighed 
about  22  stone,  was  the  only  man  he  could  not  pull 
over.  He  would  pull  with  all  his  might  and  lift 
him  half-way  off  the  ground;  it  seemed  as  if  in  an- 
other moment  he  must  have  got  the  Mayor  up  on  his 
legs,  and  we  all  waited  with  our  hearts  in  our  mouths ; 
when  suddenly  the  Mayor  would  fling  himself  flop 
on  the  ground  with  all  his  weight  and  my  father  was 

^  In  this  particular  form  of  cock-fighting,  the  two  combatants  sit 
facing  each  other  on  the  ground  with  their  toes  together,  both 
holding  on  to  a  stick,  and  each  endeavors  to  pull  the  other  towards 
him  and  force  him  to  rise  on  his  feet. 

86 


PEASANT    WOMEN    OF    THE   YASNAYA    POLYANA    DISTRICT 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

pulled  up  on  to  his  feet  and  stood  before  him  smiling 
and  shrugging  his  shoulders. 

One  of  the  Bashkirs  was  very  good  at  "playing  on 
his  throat,"  and  my  father  was  always  making  him 
perform.  This  is  a  very  curious  art.  The  performer 
lies  down  on  his  back  and  a  little  musical  instrument 
seems  to  play  in  the  depths  of  his  throat,  giving  forth 
a  clear,  delicate  note  with  a  sort  of  metallic  ring  in 
it;  one  is  puzzled  to  imagine  how  these  melodious 
sounds  can  be  produced,  so  sweet  and  so  unexpected 
are  they.^ 

There  are  very  few  who  can  "play  on  their  throat," 
and  even  at  that  time  it  was  said  that  the  art  was 
dying  out  among  the  Bashkirs. 

On  the  day  of  the  races  every  one  rode  or  drove  to 
the  course,  the  women  in  covered  carriages  and  the 
men  on  horseback. 

A  great  many  horses  ran.  The  distance  was  i6J 
miles  which  they  did  in  39  minutes,  and  one  of  our 
horses  got  second  prize. 

After  the  race  we  went  to  the  Karalyk  with  my 
father  on  a  visit  to  the  Bashkirs  and  they  gave  us  a 
dinner  of  mutton  soup.  Our  host  took  pieces  of 
mutton  in  his  hands  and  distributed  them  to  all  the 
guests.  When  one  of  the  Bashkirs  who  was  among 
the  visitors  refused  what  was  offered  him,  the  host 
wiped  his  face  all  over  with  the  greasy  lump  of  mut- 

9  There  is  no  apparatus  used  in  this  performance. 

89 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

ton  as  if  with  a  sponge,  until  the  visitor  gave  in  and 
ate  it. 

After  dinner  we  walked  out  into  the  steppe  to  look 
at  the  Bashkirs'  droves.  My  father  expressed  great 
admiration  for  a  certain  light  bay  horse,  and  when 
we  were  preparing  to  go  home  we  found  the  animal 
tied  up  to  the  shaft  of  our  cart.  My  father  was 
much  perturbed,  but  to  refuse  the  present  would  have 
been  to  offend  our  host,  and  we  were  obliged  to  accept 
it.  My  father  had  to  make  the  Bashkir  a  consider- 
able present  in  gold-pieces  afterwards. 

The  Bashkir's  name  was  Mikhail  Ivanovitch.  He 
came  to  see  us  several  times  and  my  father  was  fond 
of  playing  draughts  with  him.  While  he  was  play- 
ing Mikhail  Ivanovitch  used  to  keep  murmuring 
"Have  to  think;  very  big  think."  But  often,  in 
spite  of  his  "think,"  he  got  caught  and  my  father 
would  shut  in  his  men  and  prevent  him  from  moving, 
and  we  were  all  delighted  and  laughed  like  anything. 

We  lived  with  our  German  tutor  Fyodor  Fyodor- 
ovitch  in  an  empty  bam  in  which  rats  squeaked  and 
ran  about  at  night. 

There  were  flocks  of  beautiful  duddks  or  great  bus- 
tards ^^  wandering  in  the  steppe,  often  quite  close  to 
the  house;  and  high  up  among  the  clouds  sped  by 
huge  dark  tawny  eagles.^ 


11 


10  Otis  tarda.     The  great  bustard  does  not  fly,  or  very  little. 

11  Aquila  f ulva. 

90 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

My  father,  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch,  and  Styopa 
often  tried  to  shoot  the  bustards,  but  they  were  very 
cautious  birds  and  it  was  almost  impossible  to  get 
within  range. 

However,  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  once  succeeded  in 
creeping  up  unobserved  towards  one  of  them  from 
behind  a  flock  of  sheep,  and  wounded  it.  When  it 
was  brought  home  alive,  with  some  one  holding  its 
wings  on  either  side,  papa  and  all  of  us  rushed  out  to 
meet  it,  and  this  was  such  a  momentous  occasion  that 
I  still  remember  it  quite  clearly. 

Only  a  year  ago  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  came  to  see 
me,  old  and  broken  down  with  paralysis,  and  we 
talked  the  event  over  again,  and  he  remembered  it 
just  as  well  as  I  did. 

My  father  went  away  from  the  farm  from  time  to 
time  to  buy  horses  at  the  markets  in  Buzuluk  and 
Orenburg. 

I  remember  the  first  time  when  a  drove  of  perfectly 
wild  steppe  horses  was  brought  in  and  driven  into 
the  enclosure. 

When  they  went  in  to  catch  them  with  stick- 
lassos  ^^  several  of  the  horses  dashed  at  the  brick  and 
earth  wall,  jumped  over  it,  and  galloped  away  into 
the  steppe.  Our  Bashkir  Lutai  galloped  after  them, 
mounted  on  our  best  hunter,  and  came  back  driving 
them  before  him  late  at  night. 

12  Sticks  with  running  nooses  on  the  end. 

91 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

This  Bashkir  could  break  in  even  the  most  restive 
savage.  When  the  horse  had  been  lassoed  and 
bridled,  two  men  would  hold  it  by  the  bit  and 
by  the  ears;  the  Bashkir  would  jump  on  its  back,  call 
out  "Let  go !"  give  it  the  reins  and  disappear  in  the 
steppe.  A  few  hours  afterwards  he  would  return  at 
a  foot-pace  with  the  horse  all  in  a  lather  and  as  obedi- 
ent as  if  it  had  been  ridden  for  years. 

Another  time  my  father  brought  from  Orenburg  a 
splendid  white  Bokhara  argamak  and  a  pair  of  young 
donkeys  which  we  took  back  afterwards  to  Yasnaya 
and  on  which  we  rode  for  many  years.  My  father 
called  them  Bismarck  and  MacMahon. 

On  our  second  expedition  to  Samara,  in  1875,  ^'^Y 
father  rode  into  Buzuluk  to  see  some  old  Russian 
hermit  who  had  lived  there  for  twenty-five  years  in  a 
cave.  He  had  heard  of  him  by  report  from  the  peas- 
ants of  the  neighborhood,  who  reverenced  him  as  a 
saint.  I  begged  my  father  to  let  me  go  with  him,  but 
he  would  not  take  me  because  my  eyes  were  very  bad 
at  that  time.  I  imagine  that  this  hermit  had  nothing 
particularly  interesting  about  him,  as  I  do  not  remem- 
ber my  father's  having  anything  to  tell  us  about  him. 

The  first  year  that  we  were  on  the  farm  there  was 
a  bad  failure  of  the  crops  in  the  province  of  Samara, 
and  I  remember  how  my  father  rode  about  from  vil- 
lage to  village,  went  from  house  to  house  himself  and 
made  a  register  showing  the  condition  of  the  peasants. 

92 


A   VIEW    IN    THE    GROUNDS    OF    YASNAYA    POLYANA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

His  first  question  at  each  house  was  whether  the  own- 
ers were  Russians  or  Molokans/'"  and  he  was  partic- 
ularly interested  in  talking  about  religious  questions 
with  the  dissenters. 

The  peasant  he  was  fondest  of  conversing  with  was 
a  dignified  and  intelligent  old  man,  Vasily  Nikititch, 
who  lived  in  Gavrilovka,  the  nearest  village  to  us. 
Whenever  he  went  to  Gavrilovka  my  father  stopped 
at  his  house  and  had  a  long  talk  with  him.  I  cannot 
remember  what  they  talked  about,  as  I  was  quite 
small  at  that  time  and  took  no  interest  in  famines  or 
religious  conversations.  I  can  only  remember  that 
Vasily  Nikititch  kept  repeating  the  word  dvisti- 
telno^'^  "as  a  matter  of  fact,"  and  that  he  gave  us  the 
most  wonderfully  clear  white  honey  with  our  tea. 

13  Meaning  by  "Russian"  Orthodox;  the  Molokans  being  no  less 
Russian  than  the  rest.  The  Molokans  are  a  rationalist  sect  allied 
to  the  Doukhobors,  from  whom  they  differ  in  declaring  that  all 
religion  must  be  based  on  the  text  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
while  the  Doukhobors  maintain  that  "inward  illumination"  is  the 
only  guide.  The  name  "Molokans"  is  a  nickname  given  them  by 
the  Orthodox,  because  they  drink  milk  {moloko)  during  Lent;  their 
own  name  for  themselves  is  "spiritual  Christians."  Stephen  Grel- 
let,  the  Quaker,  greatly  preferred  thera  to  the  Doukhobors  and 
wrote  a  letter  to  Alexander  I  asking  for  special  privileges  for  them. 

14  Dvistitelno  for  deistvitelno,  like  the  comic  First  Peasant  in 
Tolstoy's  comedy,  "The  Fruits  of  Enlightenment." 


95 


CHAPTER  Vir 

games;  my  father's  jokes;  books;  lessons 

EVER  since  I  can  remember,  we  children  were 
divided  into  two  groups,  the  "big  ones"  and 
the  "little  ones."  ' 

The  big  ones  were  Seryozha,  Tanya,  and  myself. 
The  little  ones  were  my  brother  Lyolya  (Lyof )  and 
my  sister  "little"  Masha  who  was  so  called  to  dis- 
tinguish her  from  her  cousin  "big"  Masha  Kuzminski. 
We  elder  ones  always  kept  ourselves  apart  and  never 
admitted  the  little  ones  into  our  company,  because 
they  understand  nothing  and  only  interrupted  our 
games.  It  was  on  account  of  the  little  ones  that  we 
had  to  get  home  earlier  than  we  needed ;  the  little  ones 
might  catch  cold ;  it  was  on  account  of  the  little  ones 
that  we  were  not  allowed  to  make  a  noise,  because 
they  slept  in  the  daytime ;  and  if  one  of  the  little  ones 
cried  about  anything  we  had  done  and  went  and  com- 
plained to  mama,  it  was  always  the  big  ones'  fault 
and  it  was  we  who  got  scolded  and  punished. 

The  one  I  was  most  united  with  both  by  age  and 

1  The  names  "big  ones"  and  "little  ones"  were  expressed  in  Eng- 
lish in  the  Tolstoy  household,  just  like  the  epithets  of  "big"  and 
''little"  Masha. 

96 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

by  character  was  my  sister  Tanya.  She  was  a  year 
and  a  half  older  than  I  was ;  black-eyed,  lively  and  in- 
ventive. It  was  always  jolly  with  her  and  we  under- 
stood one  another  with  half  a  word.  I  and  she  knew 
things  which  nobody  but  ourselves  could  understand. 

We  were  very  fond  of  running  round  the  dining- 
table  in  the  zala.  I  would  hit  her  on  the  shoulder 
and  run  away  at  full  speed. 

"I  hit  you  last  I     I  hit  you  last  I" 

She  would  come  after  me,  catch  me  a  slap  and  run 
away  again. 

"I  hit  you  last  I     I  hit  you  last !" 

Once  I  caught  her  up  and  was  just  raising  my  hand 
to  hit  her,  when  she  suddenly  stopped  and  faced 
round  on  me,  hopping  up  and  down,  waving  her 
hands  in  front  of  her  and  saying:  "This  is  an  owl, 
this  is  an  owl !" 

Of  course  I  understood  at  once  that  if  "this"  was 
"an  owl"  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  touch  her;  and 
from  that  time  it  became  the  regular  rule  that  when 
any  one  said  "this  is  an  owl,"  they  could  not  be 
touched. 

Seryozha  would  never  have  understood  this.  He 
would  have  begun  asking  a  lot  of  questions  and  argu- 
ing about  why  one  should  not  touch  an  owl,  and 
would  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  no 
point  in  it;  but  I  saw  at  once  that  this  was  a  very 
sensible  arrangement,  and  Tanya  knew  that  I  should 

97 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

understand  her  and  that  was  her  reason  for  saying 
it. 

My  father  was  the  only  person  who  properly  un- 
derstood me  and  Tanya,  and  that  not  always. 

He  had  some  excellent  inventions  of  his  own  and 
taught  us  quite  a  lot. 

For  instance,  there  was  his  "Numidian  Cavalry." 

We  would  all  be  sitting,  perhaps  in  the  zala,  rather 
flat  and  quiet  after  the  departure  of  some  dull  vis- 
itors. Up  would  jump  my  father  from  his  chair, 
lifting  one  hand  in  the  air,  and  run  at  full  speed 
round  the  table  at  a  hopping  gallop.  We  all  flew 
after  him,  hopping  and  waving  our  hands  like  he  did. 
We  would  run  round  the  room  several  times  and  sit 
down  again  panting  in  our  chairs  in  quite  a  different 
frame  of  mind,  gay  and  lively.  The  Numidian  Cav- 
alry had  an  excellent  effect  many  and  many  a  time. 
After  that  exercise  all  sorts  of  quarrels  and  wrongs 
were  forgotten  and  tears  dried  with  marvelous  rapid- 
ity. 

Excellent  also  were  some  humorous  verses  which 
my  father  recited  to  us  when  we  were  children.  I  do 
not  know  where  he  got  them  from,  I  only  remember 
that  they  gave  us  extraordinary  delight.  They  ran 
like  this : 

Die   angenehme   Winterzeit 

Is  ferry  nice  indeet ! 

Beiweilen  wird's  ein  wenig  kalt; 

98 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Doch  Himmel,  stamp  your  feet! 

Auch  wenn  Man  doch  nach  Hause  kommt 

Da  steht  der  Punch  bereit: 

1st  es  nicht  ferry  nice  indeet 

An  der  kalten  Winterzeit? 

Another  poem  which  also  had  to  be  said  in  broken 
German  was  to  this  effect : 

Doctor,  Doctor  Hupfenzeller, 
Haf  some  pity  on  a  feller: 
First  I  must  n't  eat  all  day, 
Denn  he  take  my  pipe  away: 
Whoa !  whoa  !  whoaaa ! 

These  lines  were  trotted  out  at  various  junctures  of 
life  and  had  an  excellent  effect  when  for  no  particular 
reason  one  of  us  had  "left  his  eyes  out  in  the  rain." 

The  games  of  early  childhood  are  pretty  much  the 
same  all  over  the  world,  playing  at  horses,  at  soldiers, 
dolls,  and  hide  and  seek.  As  we  got  bigger  we  began 
to  invent  our  own  games  and  they  often  turned  out 
very  interesting. 

Once  we  had  all  been  deep  in  a  translation  of  some 
stupid  novel  in  which  the  chief  part  was  played  by  a 
Mr.  Ulverston.  I  have  completely  forgotten  the  plot 
of  the  novel;  I  only  remember  that  Mr.  Ulverston 
was  the  hero  and  fell  in  love  with  somebody  and  said : 
"I  am  lonely  and  bored."  We  cut  out  all  the  char- 
acters of  this  novel  in  paper  and  lay  on  the  floor  in 
the  zala  and  made  our  figures  walk  and  talk  and  act 

99 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

out  the  whole  of  the  story.  The  best  of  all  at  recit- 
ing the  parts  was  our  chief  inventive  genius  Tanya. 

Papa  found  us  one  day  playing  this  game  and  took 
a  pair  of  scissors  and  cut  us  out  a  man  who  was  en- 
tirely pink.  He  cut  him  out  of  a  plate  in  a  French 
fashion  paper,  and  the  whole  figure  was  taken  from 
the  bare  decollete  of  a  highly-colored  lady,  so  that  he 
was  completely  flesh-colored  all  over.  There  was  no 
such  character  in  the  novel.  However,  papa  told 
us  that  this  was  Adolphe,  and  we  at  once  invented  a 
part  for  him,  and  ever  afterwards  he  was  our  favorite 
hero.  We  could  no  longer  imagine  the  novel  having 
any  point  without  Adolphe. 

At  this  period  of  our  childhood  we  began  to  be 
wrapped  up  in  Jules  Verne.  Papa  brought  the  books 
from  Moscow,  and  every  evening  he  read  aloud  to  us 
from  "The  Children  of  Captain  Grant,"  "Twenty 
Thousand  Leagues  under  the  Sea,"  "From  the  Earth 
to  the  Moon  and  Round  It,"  "Three  Russians  and 
Three  Englishmen,"  and  last  of  all  "Around  the 
World  in  Eighty  Days." 

There  were  no  illustrations  to  this  last  stor}%  so 
papa  illustrated  it  himself.  Every  day  he  prepared 
appropriate  drawings  in  pen  and  ink  for  the  evening, 
and  they  were  so  interesting  that  they  gave  us  far 
more  pleasure  than  the  pictures  in  all  the  rest  of  the 
books. 

I  can  clearly  remember  one  of  his  drawings  repre- 

100 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

senting  some  fantastic  and  terrible  Buddhist  goddess 
or  other  with  several  heads  adorned  with  snakes. 
My  father  could  not  draw  a  bit,  nevertheless  the  re- 
sults were  delightful  and  we  were  all  tremendously 
pleased.  We  awaited  the  evening  impatiently,  and 
all  crawled  across  the  top  of  the  round  table  in  a 
bunch,  when  he  got  to  the  place  that  he  had  illus- 
trated and  broke  off  reading  to  pull  out  his  picture 
from  under  the  book. 

After  Jules  Verne — this  was  in  Monsieur  Nief's 
days — we  had  Dumas'  "Three  Musketeers"  read  to 
us,  and  papa  himself  struck  out  the  passages  which 
were  not  fit  for  children  to  hear.  We  were  greatly 
interested  in  these  censured  pages  in  which  the  love 
affairs  of  the  principal  characters  were  narrated ;  and 
we  were  very  anxious  to  read  them  in  secret  but  never 
summoned  up  courage. 

I  have  already  mentioned  our  beloved  English 
nurse  Hannah  above.  After  her  came  the  red- 
cheeked  youthful  Dora;  then  Emily  Carrie;  and  the 
last  English  woman  went  when  my  youngest  brothers, 
Andrei  and  Mikhail,  grew  out  of  childhood. 

When  we  boys  began  to  get  big,  we  had  tutors; 
the  first  of  these  was  a  German,  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch 
Kaufmann,  who  stayed  for  two  or  three  years.  I 
cannot  say  that  we  were  particularly  fond  of  him. 
He  was  rather  rough,  and  even  we  children  were 

lOl 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

struck  by  his  essentially  German  stupidity.  His  re- 
deeming feature  was  that  he  was  a  devoted  sports- 
man. Every  morning  he  used  to  jerk  the  blankets 
off  us  and  shout  "Auf,  Kinder!  auf  I"  and  during 
the  daytime  plagued  us  with  German  calligraphy. 
He  had  thick  dark  hair  which  he  wore  very  smooth 
Once  I  woke  up  at  night  and,  still  half-asleep,  saw 
Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  sitting  in  front  of  the  glass 
with  a  head  as  naked  as  a  pumpkin,  shaving  himself. 
I  was  very  frightened,  and  he  ordered  me  angrily 
to  turn  over  on  the  other  side  and  go  to  sleep. 

In  the  morning  I  did  not  know  whether  it  was  a 
dream  I  had  seen,  or  whether  it  was  real.  It  ap- 
peared that  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  wore  a  wig,  and 
took  pains  to  conceal  it. 

After  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  we  had  a  Switzer, 
Monsieur  Rey,  as  tutor  for  several  years,  and  it  was 
after  him  that  we  had  Monsieur  Nief,  a  French  Com- 
munard, the  man  who  brought  a  squirrel  and  a  viper 
to  the  kitchen  to  fry.  In  Russian,  Monsieur  Rey 
and  Monsieur  Nief  were  called  simply  Mr.  Gray 
(Pose-rey-f)  and  Mr.  Blue  (Posi-nief).  These 
nicknames  were  very  suitable,  for  the  former  was 
always  dressed  in  gray  and  the  latter  in  blue. 

When  the  Amnesty  was  proclaimed  in  France, 
Monsieur  Nief  departed  for  Algeria;  and  it  was  only 
then  we  learnt  that  his  real  name  was  le  Comte  de 
Montels. 

102 


H 

O 

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t/i 
(/I 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

In  the  winter,  when  we  skated  on  the  big  pond, 
he  used  to  walk  up  and  down  on  the  bank  in  a  short 
fur  jacket,  frozen  to  death,  rubbing  his  hands  to- 
gether and  saying,  "Oh  que  les  Russes  sont  frileuxl" 
Why,  because  he  felt  the  cold  so  much  himself,  he 
should  accuse  the  Russians  of  it,  we  could  never 
make  out. 

Speaking  of  Monsieur  Nief,  I  should  like  to  tell 
of  one  amusing  incident,  very  characteristic  of  him. 
Once  when  we  were  sitting  at  tea  in  the  evening, 
papa  was  looking  through  the  Moskovskiya  Vycdo- 
mosti  which  had  just  arrived  by  post.  It  contained 
news  of  an  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Alex- 
ander II.  As  Monsieur  Nief  was  sitting  with  us, 
papa  translated  the  article  from  Russian  into  French 
as  he  read. 

When  he  came  to  the  place  where  the  paper  said, 
"But  the  Lord  did  not  suffer  his  Anointed  One  to 
perish,"  papa,  having  read  "Mais  le  bon  Dieu  n'a 
pas  perdu  son,  son  .  .  ."  hesitated,  evidently 
searching  for  the  French  word  for  "Anointed 
One." 

"Son  sang  froid*?"  suggested  Monsieur  Nief,  per- 
fectly seriously.  We  all  roared  with  laughter,  and 
there  the  newspaper  reading  ended. 

Besides  the  people  mentioned,  my  sisters  almost 
always  had  French  governesses;  we  boys  also  had 
Russian  tutors,  and  in  addition,  once  a  week  our 

105 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

music  master,  A.  G.  Mitchurin,  came  over  from  Tula: 
so  that  all  our  time  was  spent  at  lessons,  which  were 
portioned  out  as  in  schools,  and  we  passed  from  one 
teacher  to  another. 

My  mother  and  father  also  gave  us  lessons. 

I  have  already  described  how  papa  taught  me 
arithmetic  when  I  was  quite  a  child.  Later,  when 
I  was  about  thirteen  I  think,  he  began  to  give  me 
Greek  lessons.  I  remember  his  beginning  to  learn 
Greek  himself,  I  remember  the  zeal  and  perseverance 
with  which  he  set  to  work ;  he  got  on  so  well  that  after 
six  weeks  he  could  read  Herodotus  and  Xenophon  at 
sight.  It  was  also  on  Xenophon  that  he  started  us. 
He  explained  the  alphabet  to  me,  and  then  set  me 
on  to  the  Anabasis  at  once.  At  first  it  was  very  hard. 
I  sat  with  glassy  eyes,  and  often  was  on  the  point  of 
howling;  but  in  the  end  I  saw  that  I  had  got  to  go 
through  with  it,  and  I  did. 

I  was  taught  Latin  in  the  same  way. 

When  I  went  up  for  the  entrance  examination  at 
Polivanof's  Classical  Gymnase  in  1881,  I  surprised 
all  the  masters  because,  though  completely  ignorant 
of  grammar,  I  could  read  the  classics  at  sight  far  bet- 
ter than  was  required  of  me.  In  this  I  see  a  proof 
that  my  father's  original  system  of  teaching  was  the 
right  one. 

It  was  just  in  the  same  way  that  later  on  he  learnt 
Hebrew,  and  he  got  to  know  it  so  well  that  he  could 

106 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

make  out  all  the  passages  he  wanted  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  often  gave  original  interpretations  of  his 
own  of  several  passages  to  his  teacher,  Rabbi  Minor. 


107 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RIDING.       "the    green    STICK."       SKATING. 

THE  chief  passion  of  my  childhood  was 
riding.  I  well  remember  the  time  my  father 
wrote  about  in  the  letter  given  at  the  begin- 
ning of  these  Reminiscences,  when  he  used  to  put 
me  in  the  saddle  in  front  of  him  and  we  rode  out  to 
bathe  in  the  Voronka. 

I  remember  how  I  was  shaken  up  when  he  trotted, 
and  how  afraid  I  was  of  losing  my  balance  all  the 
time.  I  remember  how  my  hat  used  to  fall  off  in  the 
forest,  and  Seryozha  or  Styopa  used  to  get  off  his 
horse  and  pick  it  up;  and  above  all  I  remember  the 
smell  of  the  horse  when  I  approached  it  and  the  foot- 
man, Sergei  Petrovitch,  took  me  by  the  leg  and 
jumped  me  up  into  the  saddle.  I  grasped  the 
friendly  withers  and  held  on  with  all  my  might  with 
both  hands. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  bathing-place,  we  used  to 
tie  the  horses  up  to  birch-trees  and  run  down  the  plat- 
form. Papa  and  Styopa  used  to  dive  head-first 
straight  into  the  open  river;  while  we  boys  used  to 
splash  about  in  the  waters  of  the  bathing-place  look- 

108 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

ing  at  the  little  fish  and  lively  long-legged  spiders 
that  ran  along  the  top  of  the  water  and  somehow 
never  got  drowned.  Papa  taught  us  to  swim,  and 
when  we  could  swim  out  into  the  river  we  bragged  a 
good  deal  about  it,  and  felt  that  it  showed  great 
courage. 

Our  first  riding-horses  were  Spoonbill  (Kolpik) 
and  Kashirski.^  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  used  to  call 
them  der  Kolpinka  and  der  Kassachirski.  I  went  for 
my  first  ride  alone  on  the  gray  Spoonbill,  and  from 
that  time  forth  I  was  able  to  ride  without  help. 

Papa  sometimes  took  us  out  riding  with  him ;  and 
then  we  used  to  go  quite  a  long  way. 

I  shall  never  forget  how  he  tormented  me  one  day. 
Hearing  that  he  was  going  for  a  ride,  I  begged  him 
to  take  me  with  him,  until  at  last  he  consented.  He 
was  riding  a  sturdy  English  mare,  and  they  mounted 
me  on  a  Samara  bay,  with  nothing  but  a  saddle-cloth ; 
no  saddle  or  stirrups.  It  was  the  same  horse  which 
took  the  second  prize  at  the  races.  He  was  an  easy 
horse  to  ride,  but  he  had  a  very  sharp  and  bony  back- 
bone. 

So  off  we  started. 

As  soon  as  we  got  into  the  flat,  papa  set  off  at  a 
brisk  trot,  and  I  went  jogging  after  him.  We  rode 
on  and  on  until  we  were  more  than  three  miles  from 
home.     I  was  so  tired  I  could  hardly  stand  it,  and 

iThat  is,  from  the  district  of  Kashira  in  Tula  ProyincBc 

109 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

still  he  went  on.  Every  now  and  then  he  would  look 
back  and  ask,  "You  're  not  tired?"  and  of  course  I 
said  no:  and  on  we  went  again. 

We  rode  all  round  the  Crown  Wood,  and  across 
the  Grumont  by  various  foot-paths  and  hollows ;  and 
when  I  got  home  at  last  I  could  hardly  crawl  off  my 
horse,  nnd  for  three  days  afterwards  I  was  a  regular 
cripple  and  every  one  called  me  John  Gilpin.  John 
Gilpin  is  the  hero  of  a  very  amusing  English  poem. 
His  horse  ran  away  with  him  and  he  could  not  stop 
it,  and  galloped  a  tremendous  distance  and  had  vari- 
ous adventures.  When  they  took  him  off  his  horse 
he  was  quite  bandy-legged.  We  were  very  fond  of 
the  pictures  in  the  book,  of  which  I  remember  one 
representing  John  Gilpin  galloping  with  his  wig  fly- 
ing off;  and  another  where  he  is  getting  off  his  horse 
with  his  bald  head  bare  and  his  knees  turned  out.^ 

•  •••«••  • 

I  have  several  interesting  recollections  connected 
with  these  rides  to  the  bathing-place. 

First  of  all  the  story  about  the  "Green  Stick." 
On  the  right  hand  side  of  "Bathing-place  Road,"  at 
the  top  of  a  gully,  near  a  small  glade,  there  is  a 
place  remarkable  for  its  strange  artificial  top-soil. 
The  earth  is  covered  with  a  layer  of  fine  black  slag, 
evidently  the  remains  of  some  ancient  iron-works. 

In  this  place,  a  narrow  footpath  runs  among  the 

2  Evidently  Randolph  Caldecott's  edition. 

no 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

oak  trees  parallel  with  the  road,  with  twisted  bare 
roots  of  trees  crossing  it.  As  my  horse  went  over 
these  roots,  he  used  to  prick  up  his  ears,  and  lift  up 
his  legs  in  a  peculiar  way,  and  I  would  tuck  in  my 
knees  sc  as  not  to  knock  them  against  the  trees. 

It  was  here,  according  to  my  father,  that  his 
brother  Nikolenka  had  buried  a  mysterious  green 
stick,  with  which  he  connected  a  childish  legend  of 
his  own.  "If  any  one  of  the  Ant-brothers  ^  finds  this 
stick,"  he  used  to  say,  "he  will  enjoy  great  happi- 
ness, and  make  all  mankind  happy  by  the  power  of 
love."  As  we  rode  past  the  place,  my  father  was 
fond  of  telling  us  this  story,  and  I  remember  once 
asking  him  what  the  stick  was  like,  and  thinking  I 
would  go  out  with  a  spade  and  look  for  it.  At  that 
time  of  course  my  father  had  no  idea  that  one  day 
he  would  be  buried  on  that  very  spot. 

Here  is  another  reminiscence.  One  day  as  we 
were  going  to  bathe,  papa  turned  round  and  said  to 
me:  "Do  you  know,  Ilyusha,  I  am  very  pleased 
with  myself  to-day.  I  have  been  bothered  with  her 
for  three  whole  days,  and  could  not  manage  to  make 
her  go  into  the  house ;  try  as  I  would,  it  was  impos- 
sible.    It  never  would  come  right. 

3  This  supposititious  Totemistic  order  has  been  shown  by  Tolstoy 
himself  to  have  arisen  from  a  childish  and  natural  confusion  be- 
tween "Moravian"  Brothers  and  muraveiny,  adjective,  "of  ants." 
Tolstoy's  own  eirenistic  philosophy  was  largely  derived  from  the 
teaching  of  Peter  of  Chelczic,  the  founder  of  the  Moravian  Brothers. 

1  11 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"But  to-day  I  remembered  that  there  is  a  mirror 
in  every  hall,  and  that  every  lady  wears  a  bonnet. 

"As  soon  as  I  remembered  that,  she  went  where  I 
wanted  her  to,  and  did  everything  she  had  to. 

"You  would  think  a  bonnet  is  a  small  affair  but 
everything  depended  on  that  bonnet." 

As  I  recall  this  conversation  I  feel  sure  that  my 
father  was  talking  about  that  scene  in  "Anna 
Karenina,"  where  Anna  goes  secretly  to  see  her  son 
Seryozha,  after  her  separation  from  Karenin. 

Although  there  is  nothing  about  a  bonnet  or  a  mir- 
ror in  this  scene,  in  the  final  form  of  the  novel — noth- 
ing is  mentioned  but  a  thick  black  veil — still  I  im- 
agine that  in  its  original  form,  when  he  was  working 
on  the  passage,  my  father  may  have  brought  Anna 
up  to  the  mirror,  and  made  her  straighten  her  bon- 
net, or  take  it  off. 

I  can  remember  the  interest  with  which  my  father 
told  me  this,  and  it  seems  strange  to  me  now  that  he 
should  have  talked  about  such  subtle  artistic  experi- 
ences to  a  boy  of  seven  who  was  hardly  capable  of 
understanding  him  at  the  time.  However  that  was 
often  the  case  with  him. 

I  once  heard  him  give  a  very  interesting  definition 
of  the  qualities  a  writer  needs  for  his  work : 

"You  cannot  imagine  how  important  one's  mood 
is,"  he  said.  "Sometimes  you  get  up  in  the  morning, 
fresh  and  vigorous,  with  your  head  clear,  and  you 

112 


'mmm^.^^^1^ 


AT  YASXAYA  POLYANA,  FEBRUARY,  1908 


THE  POND  AT  YASNAYA  POLYANA 


REiMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

begin  to  write.  Everything  is  sensible  and  consist- 
ent. You  read  it  over  next  day  and  have  to  throw 
the  whole  thing  away,  because,  good  as  it  is,  it  misses 
the  main  thing.  There  is  no  imagination  in  it,  no 
subtlety,  none  of  the  necessary  'something,'  none  of 
that  'only  just'  without  which  all  your  cleverness  is 
worth  nothing.  Another  day  you  get  up  after  a 
bad  night,  with  your  nerves  all  on  edge,  and  you 
think,  well,  to-day  I  shall  write  well  at  any  rate  I 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  what  you  write  is  beautiful, 
picturesque,  with  any  amount  of  imagination.  You 
look  it  through  again;  it  is  no  good,  because  it  is  writ- 
ten stupidly.  There  is  plenty  of  color  but  not 
enough  intelligence. 

"One's  writing  is  good  only  when  the  intelligence 
and  the  imagination  are  in  equilibrium.  As  soon  as 
one  of  them  overbalances  the  other,  it 's  all  up;  you 
may  as  well  throw  it  away  and  begin  afresh." 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  no  end  to  the  re- 
writing in  my  father's  works.  His  industry  in  this 
particular  was  truly  marvelous. 

Besides  riding  and  sport,  we  were  extremely  fond 
of  skating  and  croquet. 

As  soon  as  the  pond  froze  over,  we  used  to  put  on 
our  skates  and  spend  all  the  time  we  had  out  of  les- 
sons on  the  ice. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  winter  when  the  ice  was 
not  yet  fijm  we  were  not  allowed  to  skate  on  the  "Big 

115 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Pond,"  and  had  to  go  to  the  "Lower  Pond"  which 
was  smaller,  and,  what  was  more  important,  shal- 
lower. 

Papa  told  us  the  following  story  about  the  Lower 
Pond.  When  he  was  a  child  a  boy  called  Volodenka 
Ogaryof  came  on  a  visit  to  Yasnaya.  He  was  a  con- 
ceited creature  full  of  self-importance  and  contempt 
for  everything  that  was  not  himself.  When  the 
Tolstoy  children  took  him  round  to  show  him  the 
park  he  walked  up  to  the  Lower  Pond  and  said  con- 
temptuously:    "What  is  this^" 

"A  pond." 

"A  pond?  This?  It's  a  puddle.  I'll  jump 
over  it  as  soon  as  look  at  it  I" 

The  children  egged  him  on,  "Go  on,  jump  away  I" 

Volodenka  took  a  run  down  the  knoll  and  jumped. 
Of  course  he  jumped  right  into  the  middle  of  it  and 
would  probably  have  been  drowned  if  some  women 
who  were  there  haymaking  had  not  pulled  him  out 
with  their  rakes.  After  this  Volodenka  drew  in  his 
horns  a  little. 

I  once  played  a  very  dirty  trick  on  this  pond  for 
which  I  paid  dearly  afterwards.  We  had  gone  down 
to  skate,  and  some  five  or  six  village  boys  of  my  own 
age  came  and  joined  us.  The  ice  was  still  thin  and 
kept  giving  long  metallic  reports  when  you  set  foot 
on  it.  I  thought  I  should  like  to  see  how  strong  it 
was,  so  I  collected  all  the  boys  into  one  spot,  and 

116 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

told  them  at  the  word  One,  two,  three  I  to  jump  with 
all  their  might.     I  myself  drew  off  to  one  side. 

The  boys  gave  a  jump,  the  ice  broke  under  them 
and  they  all  went  to  the  bottom  in  a  heap.  Fortu- 
nately it  was  in  a  shallow  place,  near  the  tail  of  the 
pond,  and  no  great  harm  came  of  it.  The  children 
were  brought  into  the  house  and  dried  and  given  hot 
tea  to  drink,  and  I  was  severely  punished. 

There  was  a  wooden  tobogganing  hill  on  the  big 
pond,  and  all  the  winter  there  used  to  be  paths  swept 
on  it.  My  father  and  mother  skated  with  us  and 
added  great  animation  to  our  games. 

Our  liveliest  skater  was  my  brother  Seryozha. 
The  ice  on  the  pond  was  swept,  as  it  were,  in  main 
streets,  and  side  streets;  and  Seryozha  used  to  run 
away  from  us  through  this  maze,  while  I  and  Tanya 
tried  to  catch  him.  Once  at  a  crossing  Seryozha 
somehow  failed  to  dodge  out  of  the  way  and  we  all 
three  collided  at  the  top  of  our  speed  and  fell, 
Seryozha  underneath  and  we  two  on  the  top.  When 
we  got  up  we  saw  Seryozha,  all  blue  in  the  face,  lying 
on  the  ice,  and  wriggling  his  legs.  He  was  picked  up 
and  taken  home  at  once. 

He  walked  firmly,  carrying  his  own  skates,  but  he 
remembered  nothing  and  understood  nothing.  He 
was  asked,  "What  day  is  it  to-day'?"  "I  do  not 
know."  He  even  forgot  that  it  was  Sunday  and  we 
had  had  no  lessons.     They  sent  at  once  to  Tula  for 

117 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

a  doctor,  and  put  leeches  behind  his  ears,  and  by  the 
evening  he  was  none  the  worse  for  it. 

Another  time  my  brother  Lyolya,  who  was  eight 
years  old,  seeing  a  big  breathing-hole  covered  with  a 
thin  layer  of  fresh  ice,  skated  right  across  it.  Fortu- 
nately the  ice  did  not  break  until  the  further  end, 
where  he  could  catch  hold  of  the  edge  with  his  hands. 
Some  women  who  were  rinsing  out  linen  at  another 
breathing-hole  saw  that  he  was  drowning,  and  fished 
him  out. 

He  was  carried  home  at  once  in  his  wet  fur  jacket, 
and  rubbed  with  spirits  of  wine,  and  endless  Ah's 
and  Oh's  were  uttered  over  him.  He  had  had  a  nar- 
row escape,  for  it  was  a  very  deep  place  where  he 
went  in. 


118 


CHAPTER  IX 

SPORT 

WE  were  always  devoted  to  sport  from  our 
earliest  childhood. 
I  can  remember  my  father's  favorite 
dog  in  those  days,  an  Irish  setter  called  Dora,  as  well 
as  I  can  remember  myself. 

I  can  remember  how  they  brought  round  the  cart 
with  a  very  quiet  horse  between  the  shafts  and  we 
drove  out  to  the  marsh,  to  Degatna  or  to  Malakhovo. 
My  father  and  sometimes  my  mother  or  a  coachman 
sat  on  the  seat,  while  I  and  Dora  lay  on  the  floor. 

When  we  got  to  the  marsh,  my  father  used  to  get 
out,  stand  his  gun  butt-down  on  the  ground,  and 
hold  it  with  his  left  hand  to  load  it.  First  he 
poured  powder  into  both  barrels,  then  put  in  felt 
wads  and  rammed  them  down  with  his  ram-rod. 
The  ram-rod  struck  on  the  wad  and  bounced  up  again 
with  a  sort  of  metallic  noise.  My  father  went  on 
ramming  until  it  jumped  right  out  of  the  mouth. 
Then  he  poured  in  the  shot  and  wadded  that  down 
too.  Dora  meanwhile  fidgeted  about,  whining  im- 
patiently and  wagging  her  thick  tail  in  big  sweeps. 

119 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

While  my  father  splashed  through  the  marsh,  we 
drove  round  the  bank  rather  behind  him  and  eagerly 
followed  the  ranging  of  the  dog,  the  getting  up  of  the 
snipe,  and  the  shooting. 

My  father  sometimes  shot  pretty  well,  though  he 
often  lost  his  head,  and  missed  frantically. 

In  the  spring  we  delighted  in  going  with  him  to 
shoot  the  woodcocks  as  they  flew  over.^  We  often 
stood  in  the  Timber  Reserve  ^  near  the  "Green  Stick," 
but  our  favorite  place  was  the  bee-run  beyond  the 
Voronka.  Once  upon  a  time  our  bees  were  kept 
there  and  our  one-eyed  bee-keeper  Semyon  used 
to  live  there  in  a  low-roofed,  smoke-blackened 
hut. 

My  father  was  very  fond  of  shooting  woodcocks 
when  they  flew  over  in  the  autumn  migration,  and  a 

1  Andreyevsky's  Encyclopaedia  devotes  an  article  to  this  sport. 
It  begins  immediately  after  the  arrival  of  the  woodcocks  in  the 
Spring  and  is  stopped  by  law,  for  the  preservation  of  the  species, 
at  the  end  of  May  (June  12,  new  style).  The  birds  fly  low  over 
the  woods  in  the  evening,  soon  after  sunset,  in  different  directions, 
converging  ultimately  on  a  general  rendezvous,  where  the  cocks 
compete,  with  various  exhibitions  of  grace,  agility,  and  music,  for 
the  favor  of  the  hens.  They  utter  peculiar  cries  as  they  fly,  dis- 
tinguished, onomatopoeical  ly,  by  the  Russians,  as  "tsikking"  or 
wheepling  and  "horking,"  a  kind  of  grunting  or  quacking.  The 
cocks  scuffle  and  fight  In  the  air  on  their  way  to  the  rendezvous.  At 
nightfall  they  pair  and  lie  quiet:  the  woodcock  Is  a  polygamous 
bird.  In  spite  of  their  low  flight,  the  sport  Is  a  difficult  one,  as 
it  Is  always  carried  on  In  twilight  or  semi-darkness. 

2  This  Timber  Reserve  begins  about  600  yards  from  the  house 
at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  and  marches  with  the  Crown  Wood.  The 
Moscow-Kursk  Railway  runs  about  two  miles  from  the  house. 

120 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

sort  of  rivalry  grew  up  between  him  and  our  German 
tutor,  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch. 

Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  usually  went  ^^zum  Eisen- 
hahn^''  to  the  place  where  the  railway  cuts  through 
the  Crown  Wood.  But  my  father's  favorite  place 
was  beyond  the  Voronka. 

At  dinner-time  both  would  return  boasting  of  their 
bag  and  relating  their  experiences. 

When  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  killed  less  than  my 
father  he  used  to  say  the  reason  was  that  my  father 
had  a  dog  and  he  had  not. 

Once  the  contrary  proved  true.  My  father  de- 
cided not  to  go  shooting  that  day,  and  lent  Dora  to 
Fyodor  Fyodorovitch.  When  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch 
had  started,  my  father  could  not  hold  out  any  longer 
but  took  a  gun  and  went  off  to  the  wood  without  say- 
ing a  word  to  any  one.  Both  came  back  at  dinner- 
time and  my  father  brought  in  a  brace  m'ore  than 
Fyodor  Fyodorovitch.  According  to  him,  if  you 
have  no  dog  the  woodcocks  fly  nearer  and  it  is  far 
easier  to  hit  them.  So  Fyodor  Fyodorovitch  lost  his 
halo,  and  we  were  delighted. 

There  was  a  short  period  of  two  or  three  years 
when  I  used  to  go  out  shooting  with  my  father,  as  a 
boy.  He  had  a  blue  Belton  called  Bulka,  at  that 
time,  and  I  used  to  take  out  a  very  intelligent  and 
independent-minded  Courland  pointer,  called  "Little 


'un." 


121 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

When  my  father  ga\^e  up  shooting  "Little  'un" 
always  used  to  go  for  walks  with  him,  and  my  father 
was  very  fond  of  him  and  never  went  out  without 
him.  He  used  to  tell  us  how  "Little  'un"  came  into 
his  study  and  invited  him  to  come  out  walking.  At 
the  usual  walking  time  the  door  of  the  study  would 
open,  and  "Little  'un"  would  come  quietly  in.  If  he 
saw  that  my  father  was  sitting  working  at  his  table, 
he  would  look  shyly  out  of  the  corners  of  his  eyes,  and 
creep  about  with  inaudible  footsteps,  lifting  up  his 
claws  and  walking  on  his  pads.  When  my  father 
looked  at  him,  he  would  answer  with  an  impercept- 
ible movement  of  the  tail  and  lie  down  under  the 
table. 

"As  if  he  knew  that  I  was  busy  and  must  not  be 
interrupted,"  said  my  father,  amazed  at  his  tact. 


But  our  favorite  sport  was  coursing  with  grey- 
hounds. What  a  pleasure  it  was  when  the  footman 
Sergei  Petrovitch  came  in  and  woke  us  up  very,  very 
early,  before  dawn,  with  a  candle  in  his  hand !  We 
jumped  up  full  of  energy  and  happiness,  trem.bling 
all  over  in  the  morning  cold;  threw  on  our  clothes 
as  quickly  as  we  could,  and  ran  out  into  the  zala^ 
where  the  samovar  was  boiling,  and  papa  was  wait- 
ing for  us. 

Sometimes  mama  came  in  in  her  dressing-gown, 

122 


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O 

o 
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z 

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z 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  made  us  put  on  all  sorts  of  extra  woolen  stock- 
ings and  sweaters  and  gloves. 

"What  are  you  going  to  wear,  Lyovotchka'?"  she 
would  say  to  papa.  "It 's  very  cold  to-day  and  there 
is  a  wind.  Only  the  Kuzmmski  ^  overcoat  again  to- 
day"? You  must  put  on  something  underneath,  if 
only  for  my  sake  I" 

Papa  would  make  a  face,  but  give  in  at  last,  and 
put  on  his  short  gray  overcoat  under  the  other  and 
sally  forth.  It  was  beginning  to  get  light.  Our 
horses  were  brought  round,  we  got  on,  and  rode  first 
to  the  "other  house,"  or  to  the  kennels,  to  get  the 
dogs.  Agafya  Mikhailovna  would  be  anxiously 
awaiting  us  on  the  steps.  In  spite  of  the  coldness  of 
the  morning,  she  was  bare-headed  and  lightly  clad, 
with  her  black  jacket  open,  showing  her  withered, 
dirty  old  bosom,  all  dusted  with  snuff.  She  carried 
the  dog-collars  in  her  lean,  knotted  hands. 

"Have  you  gone  and  fed  them  again?"  asked  my 
father  severely,  looking  at  the  dogs'  bulging  stom- 
achs. 

"Fed  them  1  Not  a  bit ;  only  just  a  crust  of  bread 
apiece." 

"Then  what  are  they  licking  their  chops  for?" 

"There  was  a  bit  of  yesterday's  oatmeal  over." 

"I  thought  as  much  I     All  the  hares  will  get  away 

3  The  Kuzrninski   overcoat ;   that   is,   an   overcoat   which  Tolstoy 
had  bought  at  some  time  from  "Uncle  Sasha." 

125 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

again.  It  really  is  too  bad  I  Do  you  do  it  to  spite 
me?" 

"You  can't  have  the  dogs  running  all  day  on 
empty  stomachs,  Lyof  Nikolayevitch,"  she  grunted, 
going  angrily  to  put  on  the  dogs'  collars. 

"This  is  for  Winger,  this  is  for  Sultan,  this  is  for 
Darling." 

In  the  corner,  under  a  blanket,  lay  the  smoke- 
colored  Tuman  (Fog)  and  when  she  came  to  him  he 
used  to  wag  his  tail  and  growl. 

When  I  stroked  his  short  silky  coat,  he  would 
stiffen  himself  all  over  and  growl  in  an  affectionate, 
humorous  sort  of  way. 

"Tumashka,  Tumashka." 

"R-r-r  .  .  .  R-r-r  .  .  .  R-r-r  .  .  ." 

"Tumashka,  Tumashka!" 

"R-r-r  .  .  .  R-r-r-r  .  .  ." 

Like  a  cat  purring. 

At  last  the  dogs  were  ready,  some  of  them  on 
leashes,  others  running  free;  and  we  rode  out  at  a 
brisk  trot  past  Bitter  Wells  and  the  Grove  into  the 
open  country. 

My  father  gave  the  word  of  command,  "Line  out  I" 
and  indicated  the  direction  we  were  to  go  in,  and  we 
spread  out  over  the  stubble-fields  and  meadows, 
whistling  and  winding  about  along  the  lee  side  of  the 
steep  baulks,^  beating  all  the  bushes  with  our  hunting- 

^Xhe  mezhas  or   "baulks"   are   the  banks   dividing  the  fields  of 

126 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

crops  and  gazing  keenly  at  every  spot  or  mark  on  the 
earth. 

Something  white  appeared  ahead.  You  would 
stare  hard  at  it,  gather  up  your  reins,  examine  the 
leash,  and  could  hardly  believe  your  good  luck  in 
having  come  on  a  hare  at  last.  You  rode  up  closer 
and  closer,  with  your  eyes  gummed  on  the  white 
thing,  and  it  turned  out  not  to  be  a  hare  at  all,  but  a 
horse's  skull.     Confound  the  thing! 

You  looked  at  papa  and  Seryozha.  "I  wonder  if 
they  saw  that  I  mistook  that  skull  for  a  hare*?" 
Papa  sat  keen  and  alert  on  his  English  saddle  with 
the  wooden  stirrups,^  smoking  a  cigarette,  while 
Seryozha  had  got  his  leash  entangled  and  could  n't 
get  it  straight. 

"Thank  heaven,  nobody  saw  me,  or  what  a  fool  I 
should  have  felt."     So  we  rode  on. 

The  horse's  even  pace  began  to  rock  you  to  sleep 
at  last;  you  would  be  feeling  rather  bored  at  nothing 
getting  up,  when  all  of  a  sudden,  just  at  the  moment 
you  least  expected  it,  right  in  front  of  you,  twenty 
paces  away,  up  jumped  a  gray  hare  as  if  from  the 
bowels  of  the  earth. 

The  dogs  had  seen  it  before  you,  and  started 
forward,  and  were  in  full  pursuit  already.  You 
would  begin  to  bawl  "Tally  Hoi  Tally  Hoi"  like  a 

different  owners  or  crops.  Hedges  are  not  used  for  this  purpose 
in  Russia. 

5  That  is,  with  wooden  foot  rests,   instead  of  metal,  for  warmth. 

127 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

madman,  flog  your  horse  with  all  your  might  and  fly 
after  them. 

The  dogs  had  come  up  with  the  hare;  they  turned 
it;  they  turned  it  again:  the  young  and  fiery  Sultan 
and  Darling  ran  over  it,  caught  up  again  and  ran  over 
it  again ;  and  at  last  the  old  and  experienced  Winger, 
who  had  been  galloping  on  one  side  all  the  time, 
seized  her  opportunity  and  sprang  in ;  the  hare  gave  a 
helpless  cry,  and  the  dogs,  burying  their  fangs  in  it, 
in  a  star-shaped  group,  began  to  tug  in  different  di- 
rections. 

"Let  go!  Let  go!" 

We  came  galloping  up,  finished  off  the  hare  and 
gave  the  dogs  the  "tracks,"  ^  tearing  them  off  toe  by 
toe  and  throwing  them  to  our  favorites,  who  caught 
them  in  the  air;  and  papa  taught  us  how  to  strap  the 
hare  on  the  back  of  the  saddle. 

We  rode  on. 

After  the  run  we  would  all  be  in  more  cheerful 
spirits,  and  get  to  better  places  near  Yasenki  and 
Retinka.  Gray  hares  got  up  more  often ;  each  of  us 
had  his  spoils  in  the  saddle-straps  by  now,  and  we 
began  to  hope  for  a  fox. 

Not  many  foxes  turned  up.  If  they  did,  it  was 
generally  Tumashka,  who  was  middle-aged  and  fas- 
tidious, who  distinguished  himself.     He  was  sick  of 

^Pazanht,  tracks  of  a  hare,  name  given  to  the  last  joint  of  the 
hind  leg. 

128 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

hares  and  made  no  great  effort  to  run  after  them. 
But  when  there  was  a  fox  in  the  case  he  would  gallop 
at  full  speed,  and  it  was  almost  always  he  who  killed. 

It  was  late,  and  often  dark  when  we  got  back 
home. 

We  unstrapped  the  hares  from  the  saddles  and  laid 
them  out  on  the  floor  in  the  entrance-hall. 

Mama  would  come  down  the  stairs  with  the  little 
ones,  and  grumble  at  us  for  staining  the  floor  again; 
but  papa  was  on  our  side  and  we  did  not  care  two- 
pence about  the  floor. 

What  did  a  few  stains  matter,  when  we  had  run 
down  eight  gray  hares  and  a  fox"?  And  were  n't  we 
tired ! 

One  day  papa  quarreled  with  Styopa  '^  out  hunt- 
ing. 

This  was  near  Yagodnoye,  about  fourteen  miles 
from  home. 

Styopa  was  riding  through  a  thin  birch-wood.  A 
gray  hare  jumped  under  his  feet;  Styopa  let  his  dogs 
go,  and  we  ran  her  down.  My  father  came  gallop- 
ing up,  and  began  to  abuse  Styopa  for  running  a  hare 
in  the  wood. 

"If  you  go  on  like  that,  you  '11  smash  all  the  dogs 
to  pieces  against  the  trees;  how  can  you  do  such  an 
idiotic  thing^" 

Styopa  answered  back;  they  both  lost  their  tem- 

"  Stephen  Behrs,  the  Countess's  brother. 

129 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

pers  and  each  said  some  nasty  things;  and  Styopa, 
greatly  offended,  handed  over  his  dogs  to  Seryozha 
and  started  to  ride  home  in  silence.  We  spread  out 
over  the  field  and  rode  off  in  the  opposite  direction. 

Suddenly  we  saw  a  gray  hare  get  up  right  under 
Styopa's  feet.  He  started  and  put  spurs  to  his  horse, 
cried  "Tally-ho  I"  and  was  on  the  point  of  galloping 
after  it,  but  evidently  remembering  that  he  had  quar- 
reled with  "Lyovotchka,"  reined  in  his  horse,  a 
hunter  called  Frou-Frou,  and  without  looking  round 
silently  rode  away  at  a  foot  pace. 

The  hare  turned  round  in  our  direction,  we  let  the 
dogs  go  and  ran  it  down.  When  the  hare  was 
strapped  up,  papa  remembered  about  Styopa  and  was 
sorry  for  having  been  unkind  to  him. 

"Ah!  how  horrible  it  is  I  how  beastly  I"  he  said, 
looking  at  the  dot  disappearing  over  the  landscape. 
"We  must  catch  him  up.  Seryozha,  ride  after  him 
and  tell  him  that  I  beg  him  not  to  be  angry  but  to 
come  back;  and  tell  him  we  ran  the  hare  down!"  he 
shouted  after  him,  when  Seryozha,  delighted  for 
Styopa's  sake,  had  put  spurs  to  his  horse  and  was 
already  galloping  after  him. 

Styopa  soon  came  back  and  the  coursing  went  on 
gaily  till  the  evening,  without  further  misadventures. 

Still  more  interesting  was  the  coursing  over  the 
new  snow. 

130 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

The  excitement  began  over-night.  Would  the 
weather  settle'?  Would  the  snow  stop  in  the  night? 
or  would  there  be  a  blizzard'? 

Early  in  the  morning  we  ran  out  half-dressed  into 
the  zala  and  examined  the  horizon.  If  the  line  of 
the  horizon  was  clearly  defined,  that  meant  that  the 
weather  was  settled  and  we  could  go,  but  if  the  hori- 
zon melted  into  the  sky,  that  meant  the  snow  was 
drifting  in  the  open  and  the  tracks  made  at  night  were 
covered  over.  We  waited  for  papa  or  sometimes 
summoned  courage  to  send  to  wake  him,  and  at  last 
we  were  all  ready  and  started  out. 

This  sort  of  hunting  is  particularly  interesting,  be- 
cause by  the  tracks  of  the  hare,  you  can  trace  out  the 
whole  of  his  nocturnal  life.  You  can  see  his 
track  where  he  got  up  hungry  in  the  evening  and 
started  out  in  search  of  food.  You  can  see  how  he 
tore  the  snow-covered  herbage,  pulled  down  tufts  of 
wormwood,  sat  down  and  played,  and  at  last,  when 
he  had  had  his  fill  of  eating  and  running  about, 
turned  resolutely  to  find  a  form  for  the  day. 

This  is  where  his  cunning  begins.  He  doubles, 
covers  his  tracks,  doubles  again,  or  even  makes  a 
double  double,  and  covers  his  tracks  again;  and  at 
last,  convinced  that  he  has  sufficiently  confused  and 
hidden  his  tracks,  he  digs  himself  a  hole  under  the 
warm  lee-side  of  a  baulk  and  lies  down. 

When  you  come  on  his  track  you  have  to  raise  your 

131 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

hand  with  the  hunting-crop  in  it  and  give  a  long  mys-  . 
terious  whistle.     Then  the  rest  of  the  hunters  ride 
up,  papa  rides  forward  along  the  track  to  disentangle 
it,  and  holding  our  breath  with  excitement,  we  creep 
on  behind  him. 

Once  we  ran  down  twelve  gray  hares  and  two  foxes 
in  the  new  snow  in  a  single  day. 

I  do  not  remember  exactly  when  my  father  gave  up 
hunting;  I  think  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  eighties, 
at  the  same  time  as  he  became  a  vegetarian.  In 
October  of  1884  ^^  writes  to  my  mother  from  Yas- 
naya  Poly  ana:  "Went  for  a  ride,  the  dogs  close  on 
my  heels.  Agafya  Mikhailovna  said  they  would 
attack  the  cattle  if  they  were  not  on  a  leash,  and  sent 
Vaska  with  me.  I  wanted  to  see  what  had  become  of 
my  hunting-instinct.  After  forty  years,  it  is  very 
pleasant  to  ride  out  and  search  for  game.  But  when 
a  hare  jumped  up,  I  merely  wished  him  God-speed. 
The  main  thing  is,  one  is  ashamed." 

But  even  later  than  that,  the  passion  for  sport  was 
not  extinct  in  him.  When  he  was  out  walking  in  the 
spring  and  heard  the  wheeple  and  "hork"  of  the 
woodcock,  he  would  break  off  his  conversation,  lift  up 
his  head,  seize  his  comrade  excitedly  by  the  arm,  and 
say :  "Listen,  listen,  there  's  a  woodcock !  Do  you 
hear?' 

In  the  nineties,  when  he  was  staying  at  my  house 
in  the  Tchornski  District,^  establishing  kitchens  for 

^  Also  in  the  Province  of  Tula. 

132 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

the  starving,  a  rather  touching  thing  happened.  He 
was  fond  of  riding  through  the  villages  on  my  Kirgiz 
hunter,  and  my  greyhound,  Don,  which  was  used  to 
the  horse  and  always  went  out  with  it,  often  followed 
him.  Once  when  he  was  riding  in  the  open  he  heard 
some  village  children  near  him  calling  out  "A  hare,  a 
hare!" 

'T  looked  up,"  he  told  me,  "and  saw  a  gray  hare 
running  towards  the  forest.  It  was  a  long  way  off, 
and  it  was  quite  out  of  the  question  to  run  it  down. 
But  I  wanted  to  see  how  Don  could  run.  The  temp- 
tation was  too  strong  for  me,  and  I  showed  him  the 
hare.  Don  set  off,  and  imagine  my  horror  when  he 
began  to  catch  him  up.  I  offered  up  a  prayer: 
'Escape,  for  Heaven's  sake,  escape !'  I  looked  again 
and  saw  Don  turn  him  again  and  again.  What  was 
I  to  do*?  Fortunately  it  was  quite  close  to  the  edge 
of  the  forest.  The  hare  dashed  into  the  undergrowth 
and  got  away.  But  if  Don  had  caught  him  ...  I 
should  have  been  in  despair." 

Not  wishing  to  make  m)'  father  miserable  I  forbore 
from  telling  him  that  Don  did  not  get  home  until  an 
hour  after  he  did,  and  then  covered  with  blood  and 
distended  like  a  barrel.  It  was  evident  that  he  had 
caught  the  hare  in  the  undergrowth  and  eaten  him 
there.  But  thank  Heaven  my  father  never  knew 
about  it.  That  was  the  one  secret  which  I  managed 
to  keep  from  him  all  my  life. 

133 


CHAPTER  X 


"anna  karenina" 


I  CAN  just  remember  that  terrible  event,  the 
suicide  of  one  of  our  neighbors,  which  my 
father  made  use  of  afterwards  in  describing 
the  death  of  Anna  Karenina.  This  was  in  January, 
1872. 

Bibikof,  father  of  the  half-witted  Nikolenka,  who 
used  to  come  to  our  Christmas  trees,  had  a  house- 
keeper named  Anna  Stepdnovna.  Out  of  jealousy 
for  the  governess  she  went  to  Yasenki  station,  threw 
herself  under  the  train  and  was  crushed  to  death.  I 
remember  some  one  arriving  at  Yasnaya,  and  telling 
my  father  about  it ;  I  remember  that  he  started  off  for 
Bibikof's  and  Yasenki  at  once,  and  was  present  at  the 
post-mortem. 

I  think  I  can  even  recall  Anna  Stepanovna's  face 
a  little;  I  remember  it  as  round  and  kind  and  foolish. 
I  was  fond  of  her  for  her  good-natured,  affectionate 
ways,  and  was  very  sorry  when  I  heard  of  her  death. 
I  could  not  understand  how  Alexander  Bibikof  could 
give  up  such  a  charming  woman  for  another. 

I  remember  my  father  writing  his  Alphabet  and 

134 


A        HUNGER    GROUP   ' 


MSlA-lf.  J^&<  " 

ltl^'''-4£y^^Mflifek^     '^itt<«Bw^ 

v¥  m 

A.^lil'.e^ 

•- 

gi^ii 

'.!?.    ..--« 

Ip-- 

HH^^^^ 

. ...  :iHi 

PORTHOUSE    MENTIONED    IN    "ANNA    KARENINA  " 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Reading-book  in  1871  and  1872 :  but  I  cannot  at  all 
remember  his  beginning  "Anna  Karenina."  I  prob- 
ably knew  nothing  about  it  at  the  time.  What  did  it 
matter  to  a  boy  of  seven  what  his  father  was  writing*? 
It  was  only  later,  when  one  kept  hearing  the  name 
again  and  again,  and  bundles  of  proofs  kept  arriving 
and  being  sent  off  almost  every  day,  that  I  understood 
that  "Anna  Karenina"  was  the  name  of  the  novel  on 
which  my  father  and  mother  were  both  at  work.  My 
mother's  work  seemed  much  harder  than  my  father's, 
because  we  actually  saw  her  at  it,  and  she  worked 
much  longer  hours  than  he  did.  She  used  to  sit  in 
the  small  drawing-room  off  the  zala^  at  her  little 
writing-table,  and  spend  all  her  free  time  writing. 
Leaning  over  the  manuscript  and  trying  to  decipher 
my  father's  scrawl  with  her  short-sighted  eyes,  she 
used  to  spend  whole  evenings  at  work,  and  often  sat 
up  late  at  night  after  everybody  else  had  gone  to  bed. 
Sometimes,  when  anything  was  written  quite  illeg- 
ibly, she  would  go  to  my  father's  study  and  ask  him 
what  it  meant.  But  this  was  very  rare  because  my 
mother  did  not  like  to  disturb  him.  When  it  hap- 
pened, my  father  would  take  the  manuscript  in  his 
hand,  ask  with  some  annoyance:  "What  on  earth 
is  the  difficulty'?"  and  begin  to  read  it  out  loud. 
When  he  came  to  the  difficult  place  he  would 
mumble  and  hesitate,  and  sometimes  had  the  greatest 
difficulty  in  making  out,  or  rather  in  guessing,  what 

137 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

he  had  written.  He  had  a  very  bad  handwriting  and 
a  terrible  habit  of  inserting  whole  sentences  between 
the  lines,  or  in  the  corners  of  the  page,  or  sometimes 
right  across  it.  My  mother  often  discovered  gross 
grammatical  errors,  and  pointed  them  out  to  my 
father  and  corrected  them. 

When  "Anna  Karenina"  began  to  come  out  in  the 
Russki  Vyeslmk,^  long  galley-proofs  were  posted 
to  my  father  and  he  looked  them  through  and  cor- 
rected them.  At  first,  the  margins  would  be  marked 
with  the  ordinary  typographical  signs,  letters  omitted, 
marks  of  punctuation,  and  so  on;  then  individual 
words  would  be  changed,  and  then  whole  sentences; 
erasures  and  additions  began;  till,  in  the  end,  the 
proof  sheet  was  reduced  to  a  mass  of  patches, 
perfectly  black  in  places,  and  it  was  quite  impos- 
sible to  send  it  back  as  it  stood,  because  no  one  but 
my  mother  could  make  head  or  tail  of  the  tangle  of 
conventional  signs,  transpositions,  and  erasures. 

My  mother  would  sit  up  all  night  copying  the 
whole  thing  out  afresh. 

In  the  morning  there  lay  the  pages  on  her  table, 
neatly  piled  together,  covered  all  over  with  her  fine 
clear  handwriting,  and  everything  was  ready  so  that 
when  "Lyovotchka"  came  down  he  could  send  the 
proof-sheets  off  by  post. 

1 A  Moscow  monthly,  founded  by  Katkof,  who  somehow  man- 
aged to  edit  at  the  same  time  both  this  and  the  daily  Moskovskiya 
Vyedomosti,  on  which  "Uncle  Kostya"  worked. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

My  father  would  carry  them  off  to  his  study  to 
have  "just  one  last  look,"  and  by  the  evening  it  was 
just  as  bad  again;  tlie  whole  thing  had  been  re- 
written and  messed  up  once  more. 

"Sonya  my  dear,  I  am  very  sorry,  but  I  've  spoilt 
all  your  work  again;  I  promise  I  won't  do  it  any 
more,"  he  would  say,  showing  her  the  passages  he 
had  inked  over  with  a  guilty  air.  "We  '11  send  them 
off  to-morrow  without  fail."  But  this  to-morrow 
was  often  put  off  day  by  day  for  weeks  or  months 
together. 

"There's  just  one  bit  I  want  to  look  through 
again,"  my  father  would  say,  but  he  would  get  car- 
ried away  and  rewrite  the  whole  thing  afresh. 
There  were  even  occasions  when,  after  posting  the 
proofs,  my  father  remembered  some  particular  words 
next  day  and  corrected  them  by  telegraph. 

Several  times,  in  consequence  of  these  re- writings, 
the  printing  of  the  novel  in  the  Russki  Vyestnik  was 
interrupted,  and  sometimes  it  did  not  come  out  lor 
months  together. 

When  my  father  was  at  work  on  the  eighth  and 
last  part  of  "Anna  Karenina",  the  Russo-Turkish 
War  was  in  progress.  It  was  heralded  by  the  ex- 
traordinarily beautiful  comet  of  1876  and  a  long 
series  of  extraordinarily  beautiful  Aurorae  Boreales, 
which  we  spent  the  whole  winter  admiring.  There 
was  something  elemental  and  menacing  in  this  fiery 

139 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

nocturnal  glow  and  in  the  luster  of  the  splendid  trail- 
ing star. 

During  the  war,  papa  and  all  the  household,  we 
children  included,  were  greatly  interested.  When 
the  newspapers  arrived  from  Tula,  one  of  the  grown- 
ups used  to  read  them  aloud,  and  the  whole 
household  collected  to  listen.  We  knew  all  the  gen- 
erals not  only  by  name  and  patronymic  but  also  by 
face,  for  their  portraits  were  to  be  seen  on  all  the 
calendars,  on  cheap  broad-sides  and  even  on  our 
chocolates. 

The  Dyakofs  gave  us  a  perfect  army  of  toy 
Turkish  and  Russian  soldiers  for  Christmas,  and  we 
spent  whole  days  together  playing  at  war  with  them. 

At  last  we  heard  that  a  party  of  Turkish  prisoners 
had  been  brought  into  Tula  and  we  drove  over  with 
papa  to  look  at  them.  I  remember  how  we  went  into 
a  big  courtyard,  surrounded  by  a  stone  wall  and  saw 
a  number  of  stalwart,  good-looking  men  in  red  fezzes 
and  loose  blue  breeches. 

Papa  walked  boldly  up  to  them  and  entered  into 
conversation.  Some  of  them  talked  Russian  and 
asked  for  cigarettes.  He  gave  them  cigarettes  and 
money.  Then  he  began  to  question  them  about  their 
mode  of  life.  He  made  great  friends  with  them, 
and  made  two  of  the  biggest  wrestle  holding  each 
other  by  the  belt.  Then  one  of  the  Turks  wrestled 
with  a  Russian  soldier. 

140 


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^^-  ^/ 


I 


.'' ,/ 


^^€:^. 


x 


x' 


7'- 


/r 


*^'^^/ 


^  y. 


^^ 


'  ,^J^/ 


■i->'  :       — 


■v 


,  J 


-'^ 


/ 


^,. 


/? 


r/rz-'i^^Y 


C^'/^X 


FACSIMILE    OF   A   TOLSTOY    MANUSCRIPT 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"What  good-looking,  agreeable,  gentle  creatures  I" 
said  my  father  as  we  went  away ;  but  it  seemed  odd 
to  me,  that  he  should  be  so  friendly  with  those  ter- 
rible Turks  whom  we  were  bound  to  hate  and  to  fight 
because  they  massacred  Bulgarians  and  waged  war 
against  our  troops. 

In  the  last  part  of  "Anna  Karenina"  my  father,  in 
describing  the  end  of  Vronski's  career,  showed  his 
disapproval  of  the  Volunteer  movement  and  the 
Panslavonic  Committees,  and  this  led  to  a  quarrel 
with  Katkof.  I  can  remember  how  angry  my  father 
was  when  Katkof  refused  to  print  those  chapters  as 
they  stood  and  asked  him  either  to  leave  out  part 
of  them  or  to  soften  them  down,  and  finally  returned 
the  manuscript,  and  printed  a  short  note  in  his 
paper  to  say  that  after  the  death  of  the  heroine  the 
novel  was,  strictly  speaking,  at  an  end;  but  that 
the  author  had  added  an  epilogue  of  two  printed 
sheets,  in  which  he  related  such  and  such  facts,  and 
that  he  would  very  likely  "develop  those  chapters 
for  the  separate  edition  of  his  novel."  In  conse- 
quence of  this,  a  rupture  ensued  between  my  father 
and  Katkof  and  they  never  became  friends  again. 

In  connection  with  Katkof  I  remember,  among  other 
things,  a  very  interesting  saying  of  my  father's.  He 
said  that,  as  a  rule,  people  who  are  masters  of  lit- 
erary form  are  no  good  at  talking,  and  per  contra^ 
eloquent  people  are  entirely  incapable  of  writing. 

143 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

As  an  example  of  the  first  category,  he  adduced 
Katkof,  who  according  to  him  mumbled  and  stam- 
mered in  conversation  and  could  not  put  two  words 
together;  ^  and  in  the  second  category  he  numbered 
many  well-known  speakers,  T.  N.  Plevako  ^  among 
them. 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  I  wish  to  say  a  few 
words  about  my  father's  own  opinion  of  "Anna 
Karenina." 

In  1875  he  wrote  to  N.  No  Strakhof :  'T  m.ust 
confess,  that  I  was  delighted  by  the  success  of  the  last 
piece  of  'Anna  Karenina.'  I  had  by  no  means  ex- 
pected it,  and  to  tell  you  the  truth  I  was  amazed, 
that  people  should  be  pleased  by  such  ordinary  and 
empty  stuff." 

The  same  5^ear  he  wrote  to  Fet :  "It  Is  two  m.onths 
since  I  have  defiled  my  hands  with  ink  or  my  heart 
with  thoughts.  But  now  I  am  setting  to  work  again 
on  my  tedious^  vulgar  'Anna  Karenina,'  with  only 
one  wish,  to  clear  it  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible and  give  myself  leisure  for  other  occupations; 
not  schoolmastering,  however,  which  I  am  fond  of, 
but  wish  to  give  up ;  it  takes  up  too  much  time." 

In  1878,  when  the  novel  was  nearing  its  end,  he 
wrote  again  to  Strakhof:     "I  am  frightened  by  the 

2  Katkof  had  on  this  account  been   a  failure  as  a  professor  in 
Moscow  University  in  his  young  days. 

3  A  Moscow  barrister,  famous  for  the  half-Irish  and  half-Oriental 
eloquence  of  his  speeches. 

144 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

feeling  that  I  am  getting  into  my  summer  mood 
again.  I  loathe  what  I  have  written.  The  proof 
sheets  for  the  April  number,  "of  'Anna  Karenina'  in 
the  Russki  Vyestnik,''''  now  lie  on  my  table,  and  I 
really  have  not  the  heart  to  correct  them.  Every- 
thing in  them  is  beastly  and  the  whole  thing  ought  to 
be  rewritten — all  that  has  been  printed  too — scrapped 
and  melted  down,  thrown  away,  renounced;  I  ought 
to  say:  T  am  sorry,  I  won't  do  it  any  more';  and 
try  and  write  something  fresh  instead  of  all  this  in- 
coherent, neither-fish-nor-flesh-nor-fowlish  stuff." 

That  was  how  my  father  felt  towards  his  novel 
while  he  was  writing  it.  Afterwards  I  often  heard 
him  say  much  harsher  things  about  it. 

"What  difficulty  is  there  in  writing  about  how  an 
officer  fell  in  love  with  a  married  woman'?"  he  used 
to  say.  "There  's  no  difficulty  in  it  and  above  all  no 
good  in  it." 

I  am  quite  convinced,  that,  if  my  father  could  have 
done  so,  he  would  long  ago  have  destroyed  this 
novel  which  he  never  liked,  and  which  he  always 
wanted  to  disown. 


145 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    LETTER-BOX 

IN  the  summer  when  both  families  were  together 
at  Yasnaya,  our  own  and  the  Kuzminskis, 
when  the  house  and  the  annex  were  both  full 
of  people,  the  family  and  guests,  we  used  to  establish 
our  Letter-box.  It  originated  long  before,  when  I 
was  still  quite  small  and  had  only  just  learnt  to  write, 
and  it  continued  with  intervals  till  the  middle  of  the 
eighties.  The  box  hung  on  the  landing  at  the  top  of 
the  stairs,  beside  the  grandfather  clock;  and  every  one 
dropped  his  compositions  into  it,  the  verses,  articles, 
or  stories,  that  he  had  written  on  topical  subjects  in 
the  course  of  the  week. 

On  Sundays,  we  all  used  to  collect  in  the  zala  at 
the  round  table;  the  box  was  solemnly  opened,  and 
one  of  the  grown-ups,  often  my  father  himself,  used 
to  read  the  contents  aloud. 

All  the  papers  were  unsigned,  and  it  was  a  point 
of  honor  not  to  peep  at  the  handwriting;  but,  in  spite 
of  this,  we  almost  always  guessed  the  author  pretty 
correctly,  either  by  the  style,  or  by  his  self -conscious- 
ness, or  else  by  the  strained  indifference  of  his  expres- 

146 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

sion.  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  for  the  first  time  wrote 
a  set  of  French  verses  for  the  Letter-box,  I  was  so 
shy  at  having  them  read  out,  that  I  hid  under  the 
table,  and  sat  there  the  rest  of  the  evening  until  I  was 
pulled  out  by  force.  For  a  long  time  after,  I  wrote 
no  more  and  was  always  fonder  of  hearing  other 
people's  compositions  read  than  my  own. 

All  the  "events"  of  our  life  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 
found  their  echo  one  way  or  another  in  the  Letter-box 
and  no  one  was  spared,  not  even  the  grown-ups.  All 
our  secrets,  all  our  love  affairs,  all  the  incidents  of 
our  complicated  life,  were  revealed  in  the  Letter- 
box and  both  the  family  and  the  visitors  were  good- 
humoredly  made  fun  of. 

Unfortunately  much  of  the  correspondence  has 
been  lost  by  now,  but  parts  of  it  are  preserved  by  some 
of  us  in  copies  or  by  memory.  I  cannot  remember  all 
the  interesting  things  that  there  were  in  it;  but  here 
are  a  few  of  the  best,  from  the  period  of  the  eighties. 

The  old  fogey  continues  his  questions.  Why,  when  a 
woman  or  an  old  man  enters  the  room,  does  every  well- 
bred  person  not  only  offer  them  a  seat,  but  give  them  up  his 
own? 

Why  do  they  insist  on  making  Ushakof  or  a  Servian  Offi- 
cer who  comes  to  pay  a  call  stay  to  tea  or  dinner  ? 

Why  is  it  considered  wrong  to  let  an  older  person  or  a 
woman  help  you  on  with  your  overcoat  and  so  on?  And 
why   are   all    these   charming   rules   considered   obligatory 

147 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

towards  others,  when  ordinary  people  come  every  day,  and 
we  not  only  do  not  ask  them  to  sit  down,  or  to  stop  to  din- 
ner, or  to  spend  the  night,  or  render  them  any  service,  but 
would  look  on  it  as  the  height  of  impropriety? 

Where  do  those  people  end  to  whom  we  are  under  these 
obligations  *? 

By  what  characteristics  are  the  one  sort  distinguished 
from  the  others  ? 

And  are  not  all  these  rules  of  politeness  bad,  if  they  do 
not  extend  to  all  sorts  of  people?  And  is  not  what  we 
call  politeness  an  illusion  and  a  very  ugly  illusion? 

Lyof  Tolstoy.^ 

Question :  Which  is  the  most  "beastly  plague,"  a  cattle- 
plague  case  for  a  farmer,  or  the  ablative  case  for  a  school- 

^^  *  Lyof  Tolstoy. 

Answers  are  requested  to  the  following  questions: 

Why  do  Ustyusha,  Masha,  Alyona,  Peter,  etc.,  have  to 
bake,  boil,  sweep,  empty  slops,  wait  at  table  .  .  .  while 
the  gentry  have  only  to  eat,  gobble,  quarrel,  make  slops  and 

^^^^g^^^-  Lyof  Tolstoy. 

My  Aunt  Tanya,  when  she  was  in  a  bad  temper 
because  the  coffee  had  been  spilt,  or  because  she 
had  been  beaten  at  croquet,  was  in  the  habit  of  send- 
ing every  one  to  the  devil.  My  father  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing story  "Susoitchik"  about  it. 

1  Tolstoy's  signature  is  added  here  only  for  clearness.  His  con- 
tributions were  of  course  unsigned  like  every  one  else's.  They  are 
preserved  in  the  Historical  Museum  in  Moscow. 

148 


TOLSTOY    AND   HIS    DAUGHTER,    ALEXANDRA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

The  devil,  not  the  chief  devil,  but  one  of  the  rank  and 
file,  the  one  charged  with  the  management  of  social  affairs, 
Susoitchik  by  name,  was  greatly  perturbed  on  the  6th  of 
August,  1884.  From  the  early  morning  onwards,  people 
kept  arriving  who  had  been  sent  him  by  Tatyana  Kuzmin- 
ski. 

The  first  to  arrive  was  Alexander  Mikhailovitch  Kuz- 
minski;-  the  second  was  Misha  Islavin;  the  third  was 
Vyatcheslaf ;  the  fourth  was  Seryozha  Tolstoy,  and  last  of 
all  came  old  Lyof  Tolstoy,  senior,  accompanied  by  Prince 
Urusof.  The  first  visitor,  Alexander  Mikhailovitch,  caused 
Susoitchik  no  surprise,  for  he  often  paid  Susoitchik  visits  in 
obedience  to  the  behests  of  his  wife.  "What,  has  your  wife 
sent  you  again?"  "Yes,"  replied  the  Presiding  Judge  of 
the  District  Court  shyly,  not  knowing  what  explanation  he 
could  give  of  the  cause  of  his  visit. 

"You  come  here  very  often.     What  do  you  want*?" 

"Oh,  nothing  in  particular;  she  just  sent  her  compli- 
ments," murmured  Alexander  Mikhailovitch,  departing 
from  the  exact  truth  with  some  effort. 

"Very  good,  very  good ;  you  are  always  welcome ;  she  is 
one  of  my  best  workers." 

Before  Susoitchik  had  time  to  show  the  Judge  out,  in 
came  all  the  children,  laughing  and  jostling  and  hiding  one 
behind  the  other. 

"What  brought  you  here,  youngsters?  Did  my  little 
Tanyetchka  send  you  ?  That 's  right ;  no  harm  in  coming. 
Give  my  compliments  to  Tanya,  and  tell  her  that  I  am 
always  at  her  service.  Come  whenever  you  like:  old 
Susoitchik  may  be  of  use  to  you." 

2  "Uncle  Sasha,"  her  husband. 

151' 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

No  sooner  had  the  young  folk  made  their  bow,  than  old 
Lyof  Tolstoy  appeared  with  Prince  Urusof. 

"Aha  !  So  it 's  the  old  boy !  Many  thanks  to  Tanyet- 
chka.  It 's  a  long  time  since  I  have  seen  you,  old  chap ! 
Well  and  hearty  ?     And  what  can  I  do  for  you  T' 

Lyof  Tolstoy  shuffled  about,  rather  abashed. 

Prince  Urusof,  mindful  of  the  etiquette  of  diplomatic 
receptions,  stepped  forward  and  explained  Tolstoy's  appear- 
ance by  his  wish  to  make  acquaintance  with  Tatyana 
Andreyevna's  oldest  and  most  faithful  friend. 

"Les  amis  de  nos  amis  sont  nos  amis." 

"Ha,  ha,  ha,  quite  so !"  said  Susoitchik.  "I  must  reward 
her  for  to-day's  work.  Be  so  kind.  Prince,  as  to  deliver 
the  marks  of  my  good-will  to  her." 

And  he  handed  over  the  insignia  of  an  order  in  a  morocco 
case.  The  insignia  consisted  of  a  necklace  of  imps'  tails 
to  be  worn  about  the  throat,  and  two  toads,  one  to  be  worn 
on  the  bosom  and  the  other  on  the  bustle. 

Lyof  Tolstoy. 

the  ideals  of  yasnaya  polyana  ^ 

Lyof  Nikoldyevitch  i.  Poverty,  peace,  and  concord. 

(Tolstoy)  2.  To    burn    everything    he    wor- 

shiped, to  worship  everything 
he  burnt. 

Sofya  Audrey evna  l.  Seneca. 

(his  wife)  2.  To  have   150  babies  who  will 

never  grow  up. 

Tatyana  Audrey  evna        1.  Perpetual  youth. 

(Aunt  Tanya)  2.  The  emancipation  of  women. 

^  From  internal  evidence,  one  may  guess  that  this  is  also  by  the 
author  of  "What  Aunt  Sonya  Likes  and  What  Aunt  Tanya  Likes." 

152 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 


Ilyd 


"Big"  Maska^ 


Mme.  Seuron^ 
Vera  Kuzminski 
Prince  Urusof 

All  the  children 


Tanya  Tolstoy 


LySlya  (Lyof  Tolstoy, 
junior) 


Carefully  to  conceal  that  he  has  a 
heart  and  to  look  as  if  he  had 
killed  a  hundred  wolves. 

A  communal  family,  founded  on 
the  principles  of  grace  and  wa- 
tered with  the  tears  of  sensi- 
bility. 

Elegance. 

Uncle  Lalya.^ 

A  long-headed  game  at  croquet  and 
to  forget  all  else  terrestrial. 

To  stuff  themselves  all  day  with 
all  manner  of  scraps,  and  from 
time  to  time,  for  the  sake  of  va- 
riety, to  yell  their  heads  off. 

A  close-cropped  head.  Spiritual 
refinement  and  new  shoes  every 
day. 

To  be  editor  of  the  Novosti.^ 


4  The  author  of  these  "Reminiscences." 

5  Masha  Kuzminski. 

6  A  French  lady  who  acted  as  governess,  and  wrote  some  enter- 
taining Memoirs  of  her  life  with  the  Tolstoys. 

■^  Uncle  Lalya,  i.  e.,  Count  Tolstoy.  Lalya  and  Lyolya  both  stand 
for  Lyof   (Leo). 

8  Count  Lyof  Tolstoy  the  younger  did  as  a  matter  of  fact  take 
to  writing;  among  other  things  he  wrote  "The  Chopin  Prelude,"  an 
answer  to  his  father's  "Kreutzer  Sonata." 

153 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Princess  Obolenski  Universal  happiness   and  family- 

life  all  round. 

"Little"  Masha  The  sound  of  guitar-strings. 

Triphonovna  Their  marriage. 

TO   AUNT   TANYA 

When  the  sun  was  shining  daily- 
Then  every  one  lived  gaily 
And  like  a  marriage-bell. 

But  it  somehow  struck  Tatyana 
That  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 
One  cannot  always  dwell. 

And  it  took  but  small  discerning 
That  the  children  need  some  learning 
If  they  're  to  get  on  well. 

And  the  girls  must  have  some  training 
And  a  deal  of  hard  explaining 
To  become  like  Mademoiselle. 

So  they  got  a  lot  of  books 
And  in  spite  of  grievous  looks 
Lessons  went  along. 

But  when  it  came  to  Genesis, 

In  spite  of  all  their  menaces, 

Everything  went  wrong. 


154 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Masha  sat  with  visage  scowling, 
Little  Vera  started  howling: 
"No  more  work  for  me !" 


And  one  day  when  they  were  readin' 
Of  the  driving  out  from  Eden, 
Vera  up  and  thus  spake  she : 

"In  the  Bible  we  are  telled 
"How  that  Adam  was  expelled 
"And  Eve  was  sent  away. 

"Don't  you  teach  such  stuff  to  me, 
"For  it 's  plain  as  plain  can  be 
"Que  ce  n^est  pas  vrai.  . 

"Why,  O  why,  should  we  be  tortured 
"And  not  let  into  the  orchard 
"The  apple-trees  to  shake? 

"For  it  was  n't  so  in  Eden  | 
"You  could  get  at  things  to  feed  on; 
"No  one  locked  the  gate. 

"Why  did  they  punish  Adam? 
"It  was  you  who  told  us,  madam; 
"For  cunosite! 

"And  his  punishment  was  such 
"Just  because  he  knew  too  much ; 
"I  will  not  sin  that  way !" 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Now  their  mother  's  fairly  graveled 
How  the  knot  can  be  unraveled; 
And  I  don't  wonder! 

Lyof  Tolstoy. 

aunt  sonya  and  aunt  tanya;  and  generally  speaking, 
what  aunt   sonya   likes   and   what   aunt  tanya 

LIKES  ® 

Aunt  Sonya  likes  making  underlinen,  and  doing  broderie 
anglaise  and  all  sorts  of  beautiful  work.  Aunt  Tanya  likes 
making  frocks,  and  telling  fortunes.  Aunt  Sonya  likes 
flowers,  and  in  the  early  spring  is  seized  with  a  passion  for 
gardening.  She  puts  on  a  troubled  look,  digs  in  the  beds, 
consults  with  the  gardener  and  astonishes  Aunt  Tanya  by 
knowing  the  Latin  names  for  all  the  flowers,  until  Aunt 
Tanya  says  to  herself,  "What  a  dungeon  of  learning  she 
is!" 

Aunt  Tanya  says  that  she  cannot  stand  flowers,  and  that 
it  is  not  worth  while  bothering  yourself  with  such  garbage ; 
but  secretly  she  delights  in  them. 

Aunt  Sonya  bathes  in  a  gray  costume  and  goes  sedately 
down  the  steps  into  the  water,  gasping  with  the  cold ;  then 
makes  a  graceful  dive  and  swims  right  away  with  smooth 
even  strokes. 

Aunt  Tanya  puts  on  a  torn  American-cloth  cap  with 
pink  chintz  ribbons  under  the  chin ;  goes  with  a  desperate 
plump  into  the  depths,  and  at  once  turns  over  motionless 
on  her  back. 

Aunt  Sonya  is  afraid  when  the  children  jump  into  the 
water. 

^  Attributed  by  the  author  of  this  book,  in  an  earlier  chapter,  to 
"Aunt  Tanya." 

156 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Aunt  Tanya  calls  the  children  cowards  if  they  are  afraid 
to  jump. 

Aunt  Sonya  puts  on  her  spectacles,  collects  the  children, 
and  walks  with  a  resolute  step  into  the  plantation,  saying, 
"Mind  you  keep  close  to  me,  my  little  dears,"  and  likes  to 
walk  slowly  about  the  forest  and  pick  birch-mushrooms,^'^ 
not  despising  even  gripe-agarics,^^  and  says,  "Don't  forget, 
to  pick  the  gripe-agarics,  children ;  your  father  is  very  fond 
of  them  salted,  and  they  will  all  be  eaten  by  spring." 

Aunt  Tanya,  when  she  is  going  for  a  walk  in  the  forest, 
is  dreadfully  afraid  that  somebody  will  prevent  her,  or  come 
dogging  her  heels;  and  when  the  children  turn  up  she  says 
severely,  "Well,  run  along,  but  for  Heaven's  sake  keep 
out  of  my  sight;  and  if  you  get  lost  don't  howl."  She 
dashes  quickly  round  all  the  woods  and  down  all  the  hol- 
lows, and  likes  picking  aspen  toadstools.^"  She  always 
carries  ginger  nuts  in  her  pocket. 

In  difficult  junctures  Aunt  Sonya  always  says  to  herself, 
"Who  needs  me  most  ?     To  whom  can  I  be  most  useful  ?" 

Aunt  Tanya  says  to  herself,  "Who  can  be  most  useful 
to  me?     Whom  can  I  send  anywhere?" 

Aunt  Sonya  washes  in  cold  water.  Aunt  Tanya  is  afraid 
of  cold  water. 

Aunt  Sonya  likes  reading  philosophy  and  holding  learned 
conversations ;  she  enjoys  taking  Aunt  Tanya's  breath 
away  with  terrible  long  words,  and  completely  succeeds  in 
her  ambition. 

10  Boletus   visc'tdus. 

11  Agaricus  torminosus.  A  mushroom  capable  of  causing  some 
discomfort  as  the  name  implies;  but  rendered  innocuous  by  the 
pickling  process.  A  common  food  with  the  peasants,  but  not  among 
the  gentry. 

12  Boletus  aurantiacus,  or  luridus,  a  large  and  highly-colored 
tungus  which  grows  in  woods  in  the  late  summer. 

157 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Aunt  Tanya  likes  reading  novels  and  talking  about  love. 

Aunt  Sonya  cannot  stand  pouring  out  tea. 

Nor  can  Aunt  Tanya. 

Aunt  Sonya  cannot  stand  toadies  and  religious  maniacs. 

Aunt  Tanya  is  very  fond  of  both ! 

Aunt  Sonya,  when  she  plays  croquet,  always  finds  some 
other  occupation  to  fill  up  her  spare  moments,  such  as 
scattering  sand  on  the  stony  places  or  mending  the  mal- 
lets, and  says  that  she  is  too  active  to  sit  doing  nothing. 

Aunt  Tanya  follows  the  game  with  furious  concentra- 
tion, hating  her  opponents  and  forgetful  of  everything  else. 

Aunt  Sonya  is  short-sighted  and  does  not  see  the  cob- 
webs in  the  corners  and  the  dust  on  the  furniture.  Aunt 
Tanya  sees  them  and  has  them  swept  away.. 

Aunt  Sonya  adores  children.  Aunt  Tanya  is  far  from 
adoring  them. 

When  the  children  fall  down  and  bump  themselves 
against  the  floor,  Aunt  Sonya  caresses  them,  and  says, 
"Never  mind,  my  pet!  never  mind,  my  darling  child! 
We'll  bump  this  horrid  floor.  Take  that!  Take  that!" 
And  the  child  and  Aunt  Sonya  both  bump  the  floor  furi- 
ously. 

Aunt  Tanya,  when  the  children  bump  themselves,  rubs 
the  place  savagely,  and  says,  "Confound  you,  you  brat,  and 
the  mother  that  bore  you !  Where  the  devil  are  the  nurses, 
confound  them  all?  And  why  don't  you  bring  me  some 
cold  water  instead  of  all  standing  there  like  stuck  pigs?" 

When  the  children  are  ill.  Aunt  Sonya  consults  medical 
works  with  a  gloomy  air  and  gives  them  opium.  When 
the  children  are  ill,  Aunt  Tanya  scolds  them  and  gives 
them  castor  oil. 

Aunt  Sonya  likes  dressing  herself  up  every  now  and  then 

158 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

in  something  out  of  the  way,  and  taking  everybody  by  sur- 
prise, when  she  goes  in  to  dinner  in  the  zala  on  Sundays. 
Aunt  Tanya  also  likes  putting  on  fine  clothes,  but  likes 
something  that  makes  her  look  younger. 

Aunt  Sonya  sometimes  likes  doing  her  hair  a  la  injured 
innocence,  and  then  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  woman  perse- 
cuted by  fate  and  man,  and  yet  so  gentle  and  innocent 
withal,  with  her  pigtail  down  her  back  and  her  hair  combed 
smooth  in  front,  that  you  say  to  yourself,  "Merciful 
Heaven,  who  is  the  rascal  that  could  injure  her?  and  how 
could  that  angel  endure  it  ?"  and  tears  of  compassion  spring 
to  the  eyes  at  the  very  thought. 

Aunt  Tanya  likes  doing  her  hair  high,  with  the  nape  of 
the  neck  uncovered,  and  locks  hanging  low  on  the  fore- 
head ;  she  imagines  that  her  eyes  look  bigger  that  way  and 
she  blinks  them  continually. 

Aunt  Tanya  always  likes  to  have  the  last  word  in  a 
quarrel. 

Aunt  Sonya,  after  a  quarrel,  likes  to  start  talking  again 
as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

Aunt  Sonya  never  eats  anything  at  breakfast  and  if  she 
does  once  in  a  way  boil  herself  a  couple  of  eggs,  she  gives 
them  up  to  any  one  who  wants  them.  Aunt  Tanya  when 
she  gets  up  says  to  herself:  "What  would  my  Lady 
fancy?" 

Aunt  Sonya  eats  quickly,  in  small  mouthfuls,  like  a  hen 
pecking,  with  her  head  bent  low  over  her  plate.  Aunt 
Tanya  stuffs  her  mouth  full,  and  if  any  one  looks  at  her 
while  she  is  eating,  tries  to  look  as  if  she  only  ate  because 
she  was  obliged  to,  and  not  because  it  gave  her  any  pleas- 
ure. 

Aunt  Sonya  likes  sitting  at  the  piano,  and  playing  and 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

singing  to  the  children  in  a  gentle  voice,  "Gop,  gop,  gop ! 
break  into  a  gallop!"  while  the  children  lark  about. 

Aunt  Tanya  cannot  stand  mixing  up  children  and  music, 
but  has  no  objection  to  her  own  children  dancing  too  when 
Aunt  Sonya  plays,  only  she  conceals  the  fact. 

Aunt  Sonya  makes  clothes  for  her  children  with  enough 
turned  up  to  allow  for  another  fifteen  years'  growth. 

Aunt  Tanya  leaves  no  margin,  and  the  first  time  they  go 
to  the  wash,  they  have  to  be  re-made. 

Aunt  Sonya  likes  evening  parties — Aunt  Tanya  cannot 
stand  them. 

Aunt  Sonya  is  always  feeling  anxious  about  somebody, 
especially  when  they  have  gone  away  on  a  journey.  Aunt 
Tanya,  once  she  has  said  good-by,  tries  to  forget  them  and 
bothers  her  head  no  more. 

Aunt  Sonya  when  she  is  enjoying  any  pleasure  or  fes- 
tivity immediately  mingles  a  feeling  of  melancholy  with 
her  enjoyment.  Aunt  Tanya  gives  herself  up  to  the  pleas- 
ure of  the  moment. 

Aunt  Sonya  is  very  delicate  about  other  people's  property, 
so  that  when  Aunt  Tanya  has  mushroom-pie  she  says,  "Are 
you  sure  I  am  not  robbing  you,  Tanya  dear?"  (when  it  is 
a  matter  of  somebody  else's  property  Aunt  Sonya  always 
says  "you"  instead  of  "thee"  and  "thou")  and  so  saying, 
takes  an  end.  Aunt  Tanya  despairingly  and  persuasively 
begs  her  to  take  the  middle,  but  in  vain:  the  petition  is 
rejected. 

When  Aunt  Tanya  does  not  get  new  bread  for  breakfast 
she  asks  Aunt  Sonya,  "Have  n't  you  any  new  bread  to-day  ?" 
and  without  waiting  for  an  answer,  picks  up  the  bread  and 
smells  it,  then  smells  the  butter;  and  finally  pushes  them 
both  to  one  side,  and  cries,  "The  bread  is  always  stale ! 

160 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

The  butter  always  smells  of  the  cowl"  and  nevertheless 
goes  on  eating  other  people's  bread  and  other  people's  but- 
ter. 

The  question  which  on  the  whole  has  the  best  of  It,  Aunt 
Tanya  or  Aunt  Sonya,  is  not  yet  solved. 

We  often  had  visits  at  Yasnaya  from  a  crazy  sort 
of  religious  maniac  of  the  name  of  Blokhin.  He  suf- 
fered from  megalomania,  founded  on  the  claim  that 
he  had  "passed  through  all  the  ranks  of  nobility" 
and  was  equal  to  the  Emperor  Alexander  II  and  to 
God.  Consequently  he  lived  exclusively  to  "have 
a  good  time",  kept  an  "open  money  bank"  and 
called  himself  a  Prince  and  "Knight  of  all  the 
Orders,"  When  he  was  asked  why  he  had  no  money 
and  begged  for  alms,  he  used  to  smile  naively,  and 
answer,  unabashed,  that  there  had  been  some  diffi- 
culty about  remittance,  but  that  he  had  "sent  in  a 
report"  and  would  get  it  in  a  few  days.  With 
Blokhin  who  is  described  in  the  following  "Asylum 
Bulletin"  under  number  21,  my  father  compares 
many  of  the  other  patients  at  Yasnaya  Poly  ana,  all 
of  whom  he  reckoned  as  dangerous  and  requiring 
treatment;  but  Blokhin  himself  he  compares  with 
Sasha,  a  little  girl  still  at  the  breast,  and  he  con- 
siders him  the  only  one  who  can  be  certified  as 
cured,  because  he  is  the  only  one  who  reasons  really 
consistently. 


161 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

BULLETIN    OF   THE    PATIENTS    AT    YASNAYA   POLYANA 
LUNATIC  ASYLUM 

No.  1.  (Lyof  Nikolayevltch  Tolstoy.) ^^  Sanguine  com- 
plexion. One  of  the  harmless  sort.  The  patient  is  sub- 
ject to  the  mania  known  to  German  lunatic  doctors  as 
Weltverbesserungswahn.  The  patient's  hallucination  con- 
sists in  thinking  that  you  can  change  other  people's  lives  by 
words.  General  symptoms:  discontent  with  all  the  existing 
order  of  things ;  condemnation  of  every  one  except  himself, 
and  irritable  garrulity  quite  irrespective  of  his  audience; 
frequent  transitions  from  fury  and  irritability  to  an  un- 
natural tearful  sentimentality.  Special  symptoms :  busying 
himself  with  unsuitable  occupations,  such  as  cleaning  and 
making  boots,  mowing  hay,  etc.  Treatment :  complete  in- 
difference of  all  surrounding  the  patient  to  what  he  says; 
occupations  designed  to  use  up  all  his  energy. 

No.  2.  (The  Countess  Sofya  Andreyevna.)  Belongs 
also  to  the  harmless  sort,  but  has  to  be  shut  up  at  times. 
The  patient  is  subject  to  the  mania  petulanta  hurryupica 
maxima.  The  patient's  hallucination  consists  in  thinking 
that  every  one  demands  everything  of  her  and  that  she 
cannot  manage  to  get  everything  done.  Symptoms :  solu- 
tion of  problems  which  are  not  proposed;  answering  ques- 
tions before  they  have  been  put ;  repelling  accusations 
which  have  not  been  made;  and  satisfaction  of  demands 
which  have  not  been  put  forward.  The  patient  suffers 
from  the  Blokhin-bank  mania.  Treatment:  hard  work. 
Diet:  segregation  from  frivolous  worldly  people.     A  good 

^^  The  names  of  the  patients  have  been  added  by  the  author  of 
the  book, 

162 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

effect  would  be  produced  in  this  case  by  a  moderate  dose 
of  bogeymanwater.^* 

No.  3.  (Uncle  Sasha  Kuzminski,  Aunt  Tanya's  hus- 
band.) The  patient  formerly  suffered  from  mania  sena- 
torialis  ambitiosa  magna,  complicated  by  mania  emolu- 
menti  pecuniarii.  Is  now  in  process  of  being  cured.  The 
patient's  malady  expresses  itself  at  present  in  the  de- 
sire to  unite  the  functions  of  his  own  yard-man  ^^  with  the 
calling  of  Presiding  Judge  of  the  District  Court.  General 
symptoms:  unnatural  quiet,  want  of  self-confidence.  Spe- 
cial symptoms:  useless  digging  in  the  earth,  and  just  as  use- 
less reading  of  journalistic  productions,  and  a  fitful  and 
gloomy  disposition,  expressing  itself  in  outbursts  of  ill-tem- 
per. Treatment :  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  ques- 
tions of  life,  more  reckoning  with  reality,  more  gentleness 
and  more  confidence  about  those  principles  which  he  con- 
siders fundamental. 

No.  4.  (Madame  Seuron.)  The  patient  suffers  from 
comme-il-fautis  simplex,  complicated  with  vestiges  of  sacra- 
cordia  catholica.  General  symptoms:  want  of  clearness  in 
view  of  life  combined  with  resolute  assuredness  of  manner. 
Actions  are  better  than  words.  Special  symptoms:  frivolous 
conversation  combined  with  strictness  of  life.  The  patient 
is  strongly  infected  with  the  prevalent  Blokhin-bank  mania. 
Treatment:  morality  and  love  for  her  son.  The  prognosis 
is  favorable. 

No.  5.  (One  of  the  daughters.)  Suffers  from  seu- 
ronophilia,  a  very  dangerous  disease.  Radical  treatment: 
marriage. 

14  Bogey-man-water,  i.  e.,  to  be  scolded  and  frightened. 

15  Dvornik,  concierge. 

163 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

No.  6.  (Aunt  Tanya.)  The  patient  suffers  from  the 
mania  known  as  mania  demonica  completica,  a  rare  malady 
affording  little  hope  of  cure.  The  patient  belongs  to  the 
dangerous  category.  Origin  of  the  disease,  success  in  youth 
and  the  habit  of  satisfied  vanity  with  no  moral  principles 
of  life.  Symptoms:  fear  of  imaginary  personal  devils  and 
a  particular  affection  for  their  works  and  for  every  sort  of 
temptation  to  luxury,  malice,  and  indolence.  Anxiety 
about  that  life  which  does  not  exist,  and  indifference  to 
that  which  does  exist.  The  patient  feels  herself  perpetually 
in  the  snares  of  the  Devil,  likes  to  be  in  his  snares  and  at 
the  same  time  is  afraid  of  him.  The  patient  suffers  acutely 
from  the  epidemic  mania  of  Blokhinism.  The  issue  of  the 
case  is  doubtful  because  recovery  from  the  fear  of  the  Devil 
is  rendered  possible  only  by  renunciation  of  his  works.  But 
his  works  occupy  the  whole  of  the  patient's  life.  Two  dif- 
ferent treatments  are  possible :  either  complete  surrender  to 
the  Devil  and  his  works  for  the  purpose  of  tasting  all 
their  bitterness,  or  complete  estrangement  of  the  patient 
from  the  works  of  the  Devil.  In  the  first  alternative,  two 
large  doses  of  compromising  coquetry,  two  million  roubles, 
two  months  of  complete  idleness  and  a  summons  before  the 
magistrate  for  words  calculated  to  lead  to  a  breach  of  the 
peace  would  have  an  excellent  effect.  In  the  second  alterna- 
tive :  three  or  four  children  to  be  nursed  by  the  patient  her- 
self, a  life  full  of  occupation  and  mental  development. 
Diet:  in  the  first  alternative,  truffles  and  champagne,  frocks 
made  entirely  of  lace,  three  new  ones  per  diem.  In  the 
second  alternative:  shtchi  (cabbage  soup),  kasha,  with 
sweet  curd-pies  on  Sundays  and  a  dress  of  the  same  invari- 
able cut  and  color  for  the  rest  of  her  life. 

No.  7.     (Seryozha  Tolstoy,  the  son.)     The  patient  suf- 

164 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

fers  from  a  mania  called  universalis  libertatis  palaver.  The 
patient  belongs  to  the  category  of  the  nearly  harmless. 
General  symptoms:  the  desire  to  know  whatever  other  peo- 
ple know,  however  useless  to  himself,  and  the  lack  of  all 
desire  to  know  what  it  is  useful  for  him  to  know.  Special 
symptoms:  pride,  self-assurance,  and  irritability.  The  case 
has  not  yet  been  fully  investigated  but  the  patient  also 
suffers  very  acutely  from  the  Prince  Blokhin  mania.  Treat- 
ment: forced  labor,  and  above  all,  service  or  love  or  both. 
Diet:  less  confidence  in  learning  and  profounder  study  of 
what  he  has  already  learned. 

No.  8.  (The  author  of  these  "Reminiscences.")  Mania 
Prochoris  egoistica  complicata.  The  patient  belongs  to  the 
dangerous  category.  His  hallucination  consists  in  thinking 
that  the  whole  world  centers  about  him;  and  that  the  more 
insignificant  and  absurd  the  occupations  are  with  which  he 
is  busied,  the  more  interested  the  world  will  be  in  those  oc- 
cupations. General  symptoms :  the  patient  cannot  occupy 
himself  with  anything  unless  Prokhor  is  present  to  admire 
him.  But  inasmuch  as  the  higher  the  order  of  occupations 
the  smaller  is  the  number  of  admiring  Prokhors,  the  patient 
invariably  descends  to  the  lowest  order  of  occupations. 
Special  symptoms :  the  patient  is  excited  to  the  point  of 
ecstasy  by  every  kind  of  approval,  and  without  it  sinks  into 
apathy.  The  patient  is  strongly  affected  by  the  Blokhin  epi- 
demic. A  difficult  case.  The  issue  is  two-fold:  either  the 
patient  will  get  accustomed  to  submitting  himself  to  the 
judgment  of  the  inferior  sort  of  people,  the  Prokhors,  per- 
petually lowering  himself  in  proportion  to  the  facility  of 
their  approval,  or  this  may  disgust  him  and  he  may  try 
to  take  an  interest  in  activities  satisfactory  to  himself  in- 
dependent of  all  Prokhors.     Treatment:  impossible.     Diet: 

i6? 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

abstention  from  the  society  of  people  of  a  lower  order  of 
culture  than  himself. 

No.  9.  The  patient  is  subject  to  a  complicated  malady 
called  mania  metaphysica,  complicated  by  hypertrophy  of 
corrupted  ambition,  vanitas  diplomatica  highlifica.  He  suf- 
fers from  the  perpetual  discord  between  his  habits  and  his 
philosophy  of  life.  Gejieral  symptoms:  low  spirits  and  the 
desire  to  appear  gay  and  lively,  love  of  solitude.  Special 
symptoms:  reversion  to  old  habits  and  discontent  with  him- 
self ;  excessive  irritability  and  excitement  in  the  communica- 
tion of  his  own  ideas.  The  only  treatment  of  undoubted 
efficacy  is  re-union  with  his  family. 

No.  10.  (Masha  Kuzminski.)  The  patient  has  only 
lately  arrived  at  the  asylum,  and  has  not  yet  been  properly 
investigated  but  the  following  diagnosis  has  been  arrived  at : 
Mania  kapnisto-meshtcheriano  ^'^-petersburgiana,  complicated 
with  hypertrophia  modestica.  General  symptoms:  want  of 
animation,  lassitude,  and  dreaming  of  partners;  the  repeti- 
tion of  convulsive  movements  of  the  feet  at  the  sound  of 
music,  though  without  undulation  of  the  body.  Acutely 
subject  to  Blokhinismus  simplex.  Radical  treatment 
needed:  Bogeymanwater  and  strong  affection  for  a  good 
man. 

No.  11.  Patient  still  subject  to  investigation.  The  pa- 
tient has  so  far  shown  clear  symptoms  of  the  mania  known 
to  Russian  lunatic  doctors  as  "Yernostiphikhotitude"  i.e. 
his  hallucination  consists  in  thinking  that  what  is  wanted  is 
not  the  thing  itself  or  the  feeling  itself,  or  the  knowledge 
itself,  but  something  resembling  the  thing,  the  feeling,  and 
the   knowledge.     Special  symptoms:   the   desire   to   appear 

I*'  The  adjectives  are  formed  from  the  proper  names  Kapnist  and 
Meshtchersky,  friends  of  the  Tolstoy  family. 

166 


MIKHAIL,    ANDREI,    AND    TATVANA,    TOLSTOy's    DAUGHTER 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

omniscient  and  to  be  remarked  by  every  one.  The  malady 
is  not  very  dangerous.  Treatment^  already  begun  to  be 
applied:  humiliation. 

No.  12.  (Masha  Tolstoy,  the  daughter.)  Patient  still 
under  investigation.  Belongs  to  the  category  of  the  per- 
fectly harmless.  The  symptoms  vt'hich  make  her  stay  in 
the  asylum  still  necessary  are  merely  the  following:  pas- 
sion for  eikon  lamps,  pointed  toes,  ribbons,  bustles,  etc.  In- 
fected with  the  Prince  Blokhi'n  epidemic.  Medical  treat- 
ment not  necessary ;  only  the  following  diet :  removal  from 
the  company  of  crazy  people;  after  this  the  patient  can  be 
certified  as  cured. 

No.  13.  (Vera  Kuzminski.)  Dangerous.  The  patient 
suffers  from  the  mania  known  among  Portuguese  doctors 
as  mania  outspokianica  honesta  maxima.  Pleasant  exterior 
and  the  idea  that  every  one  is  occupied  with  that  exterior. 
Symptoms:  shyness,  placidity,  and  bursts  of  outspokenness. 
Acutely  subject  to  the  Prince  Blokhi'n  epidemic.  Treat- 
ment: tenderness  and  love.     Prognosis  favorable. 

No.  14.  The  patient  suffers  from  the  mania  known  to 
English  doctors  as  maxima  anglica  as-you-like-itude^''  The 
patient's  hallucination  consists  in  thinking  that  you  must 
not  do  what  you  want,  but  what  other  people  want.  Minor 
degree  of  the  Prince  Blokhi'n  epidemic.  Treatment:  faith 
in  what,  in  her  heart  of  hearts,  her  conscience  thinks 
right,  and  disbelief  in  what  is  considered  so  by  other  peo- 
ple. 

No.  15.  Patient  still  under  investigation.  Hallucina- 
tion: roubles  and  Uncle  Lalya.  Belongs  to  the  category 
of  the  perfectly  harmless.  Only  faintly  affected  by  Blok- 
hinism.     Cure  possible. 

I'^The  words  "as-you-like"  are  in  English  in  the  original. 

169 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

No.  16.^^  Under  investigation.  Mania:  doing  up  but- 
tons.    Infected  with  Blokhinism. 

No.  17,  18,  19.  Under  investigation.  Only  faintly  af- 
fected with  Blokhinism. 

No.  20.  (The  baby,  Sasha  Tolstoy.)  Still  in  charge  of 
wet-nurse.  Completely  healthy  and  may  be  certified  for 
removal  without  danger.  In  case  of  continued  residence  at 
Yasnaya  Polyana  is  liable  to  undoubted  infection,  as  she 
will  soon  discover  that  the  milk  which  she  enjoys  was  bought 
from  the  baby  born  of  her  wet-nurse. 

No.  21.  (The  idiot  Blokhin.)  Prince  Blokhin.  Mili- 
tary Prince,  has  passed  through  all  ranks  of  nobility,  Knight 
of  all  the  Orders  of  Blokhin.  The  patient's  hallucination 
consists  entirely  in  this :  that  other  people  are  bound  to 
work  for  him,  but  he  has  only  to  receive  money,  keep  an 
open  bank,  have  carriages,  horses,  clothes,  and  luxuries  of 
every  description,  and  have  a  good  time.  The  patient  is 
not  dangerous  and  can  be  certified  as  cured,  together  with 
No.  20.  The  fact  that  his.  Prince  Blokhin's,  life,  may 
be  spent  in  enjoying  himself  while  everybody  else's  must 
be  spent  in  labor,  is  explained  by  the  Prince,  with  perfect 
consistency,  by  the  fact  that  he  has  passed  through  all  the 
ranks  of  nobility,  but  no  explanation  of  any  sort  can  be 
given  for  an  idle  life  in  the  case  of  other  people. 

No.  22.  (Uncle  Seryozha,  Sergei  Nikolayevitch,  Tol- 
stoy's brother.)  The  patient  has  already  been  investigated 
before,  but  has  come  back  to  the  asylum  for  further  treat- 
ment. He  is  not  dangerous.  He  suffers  from  the  mania 
known  to  Spanish  doctors  as  mania  katkoviana  antiqua 
nobilis  russica  and  from  inveterate  Beethovenophobia. 
General  symptoms:  after  nourishment  the  patient  experi- 

18  Nos.  16,  17,  18,  19  are  the  small  children. — I.  T. 

170 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

ences  an  irrepressible  desire  to  have  the  Moskovskiya 
Vyedomosti  ^^  read  to  him  and  is  dangerous  in  this  respect, 
that  in  insisting  on  having  the  Moskovskiya  Vyedomosti 
read  to  him  he  is  liable  to  use  violence.  After  taking  nour- 
ishment in  the  evening  he  becomes  dangerous  again  at  the 
sound  of  "The  Spinner,"  ^'^  stamping  his  feet,  waving  his 
arms  and  giving  vent  to  savage  outcries.  Special  symptoms : 
is  unable  to  take  up  all  his  cards  at  once,  but  takes  them 
into  his  hand  one  by  one.  Once  a  month,  for  a  reason 
not  yet  ascertained,  he  drives  into  a  town  called  Krapivna  ^^ 
and  passes  his  time  there  in  the  oddest  and  most  unsuit- 
able occupations.  Greatly  preoccupied  by  female  beauty. 
Treatment:  friendship  with  peasants  and  intercourse  with 
Nihilists.  Diet:  not  to  smoke,  not  to  drink,  and  not  to  go 
to  the  circus. 

Lyof  Tolstoy. 


A   POEM    BY    MY    FATHER,    DEDICATED    TO    MY    SISTER    TANYA 

In  the  morning  dressed  in  drab, 

Pink  at  dinner  as  a  crab : 

What  has  worked  the  transformation 

From  a  grub  to  a  carnation? 

If  to  know  the  cause  you  list 

You  must  go  and  ask  Kapnist.^^ 

19  Katkof 's  daily  paper.  The  organ  of  philosophic  Tory  na- 
tionalism. 

20  A  certain  Russian  peasant-song. — I.  T. 

21  Sergei  Tolstoy  was  District  Marshal  of  the  noblesse. — I.  T 
In  that  capacity  he  would  have  to  attend  in  Krapivna,  the  District 
chief  town,  to  many  sorts  of  business,  presiding  over  the  meeting 
of  the  District  Zemstvo,  the  School  and  Land  Boards,  etc. 

22  My  sister  Tanya  at  that  time  often  went  on  visits  to  Count 
Kapnist's  house. — I.  T. 

171 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

HEXAMETERS   BY   V.    V.   T. 

Boldly  I  set  me  to  write  a  critique  for  the  family  Post-box: 

Little  I  found  to  praise,  but  many  a  matter  of  censure. 

Dipping  my  pen  into  poison,  I  harbored  mercy  for  no  one. 

What  was  the  cause  that  my  heart  so  suddenly  stopped  in 
its  beating? 

Terrible  qualms  in  the  midriff,  knees  both  quaking  beneath 
me. 

Gods  of  Olympus  declare  the  cause  of  my  great  trepida- 
tion! 

Harken,  the  Gods  make  answer,  and  Zeus  the  Thunderer 
speaketh : 

"Pitiful  censor  of  others?     Know'st  thou  not  that  a  censor 

"Greater  than  thou  thyself,  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  Strak- 
hof,23 

"Dwelleth  in  Yasnaya  now,  ready  to  go  on  the  war-path, 
"Lay  thee  low  in  the  dust  with  an  epitaph  writ  on  thy  tomb- 
stone, 
"Full  of  the  venom  of  hate,  for  a  wholesome  example  to 

others  T 
Jupiter  held  his  peace.     Black  night  fell  over  the  landscape. 
Still  I  quaked  as  I  sat ;  but  at  last  recovered  my  courage, 
Henceforth  vowing  to  write  you  my  future  adventures  in 
rickety  verses. 

23  A  gentleman  of  remarkable  benignity,  though  a  critic  by  pro- 
fession ;    mentioned   below   in   Chapter   XIII. 


172 


CHAPTER  XII 

SERGEI    NIKOLAYEVITCH    TOLSTOY 

I    CAN  remember  my  Uncle  Seryozha  (Sergei) 
from   my   earliest   childhood.     He    lived    at 
Pirogovo,  twenty  miles  from  Yasnaya,  and 
visited  us  pretty  often. 

As  a  young  man  he  was  very  handsome.  He  had 
the  same  features  as  my  father,  but  he  was  slenderer 
and  more  aristocratic-looking.  He  had  the  same 
oval  face,  the  same  nose,  the  same  intelligent  gray 
eyes,  and  the  same  thick  overhanging  eyebrows ;  but 
the  real  difference  between  his  face  and  my  father's 
may  be  measured  by  the  fact  that  in  those  distant 
days  when  my  father  cared  for  his  personal  appear- 
ance, he  was  always  worrying  about  his  ugliness, 
while  Uncle  Seryozha  was  universally  considered, 
and  really  was,  a  very  handsome  man. 

This  is  what  my  father  says  about  Uncle  Seryozha 
in  his  fragmentary  Reminiscences: 

I  and  Mftenka  (Dimitri)  were  chums,  Nikolenka  I  re- 
vered ;  but  Seryozha  I  admired  enthusiastically  and  imi- 
tated ;  ^  I  loved  him  and  wished  to  be  him.     I  admired  his 

1  The  order  of  the  Tolstoy  family  was  as  follows:     Nikolai    (d. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

handsome  exterior,  his  singing — ^he  was  always  a  singer — 
his  drawing,  his  gaiety,  and  above  all,  however  strange  a 
thing  it  may  seem  to  say,  his  self-confident  egoism,^^ 

I  always  remembered  myself,  was  conscious  of  myself, 
always  divined,  rightly  or  wrongly,  what  others  thought 
about  me  and  felt  towards  me;  and  this  spoilt  the  joy 
of  life  for  me.  This  was  probably  the  reason  why  I  par- 
ticularly delighted  in  the  opposite  of  this  in  other  people, 
namely,  self-confident  egoism.  That  is  what  I  especially 
loved  in  Seryozha;  though  the  word  "loved"  is  inexact. 
I  loved  Nikolenka,  but  I  admired  Seryozha  as  something 
alien  and  incomprehensible  to  me.  It  was  a  human  life 
very  beautiful,  but  completely  incomprehensible  to  me,  mys- 
terious, and  therefore  especially  attractive. 

He  died  only  a  few  days  ago,  and  while  he  was  ill  and 
while  he  was  dying  he  was  just  as  inscrutable  and  just  as 
dear  to  me  as  he  had  been  in  the  distant  days  of  our  child- 
hood. 

In  those  latter  days,  in  our  old  age,  he  was  fonder  of  me, 
valued  my  attachment  more,  was  prouder  of  me,  wanted  to 
agree  with  me  but  could  not,  and  remained  just  the  same  as 
he  had  always  been,  namely,  something  quite  apart,  only 
himself,  handsome,  aristocratic,  proud,  and  above  all,  truth- 
ful and  sincere  to  a  degree  that  I  never  met  in  any  other  man. 
He  was  what  he  was ;  he  concealed  nothing  and  did  not  wish 
to  appear  anything  different. 

I  wanted  to  be  with  Nikolenka,  to  talk  and  think  with 
him ;  while  Seryozha  I  only  wanted  to  imitate.  This  imita- 
tion began  from  my  earliest  childhoodo 

i860);  Dimitri  (d.  1856);  Sergei  (d.  1904);  Lyof,  the  novelist; 
and  Mary,  the  nun. 

la  Literally,  "The  directness  of  his  egoism,"  i.  e.,  the  immediate  re- 
lation between  his  ego  and  that  on  which  it  acted. 


TOLSTOY    WITH    THE   WIFE    OF   HIS   ELDEST    BROTHER,    COUNT   SERGEI 

NIKOLAYEVITCH 

She  had  been  a  chorus  girl  in  a  Gipsy  singing-troupe 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

We  were  always  delighted  when  his  barouche, 
drawn  by  three  splendid  horses  abreast,  in  plated 
harness  with  bells,  drove  up  to  the  house  and  out 
stepped  Uncle  Seryozha,  in  a  broad-brimmed  black 
felt  hat  and  a  long  black  overcoat,  very  handsome  and 
"boyardlyo"  Papa  used  to  come  out  from  his  study 
to  meet  him,  held  his  hand  while  he  kissed  him,  and 
mama  used  to  run  out  delightedly  into  the  hall,  ask 
after  Marya  Mikhailovna  and  the  children,  and  then 
run  to  the  kitchen  to  tell  the  cook  to  prepare  some 
special  dish  "for  our  visitor/' 

Uncle  Seryozha  never  treated  children  affection- 
ately; on  the  contrary  he  seemed  to  put  up  with  us 
rather  than  to  like  us ;  but  we  always  treated  him  with 
particular  reverence,  the  result,  as  I  can  see  now, 
partly  of  his  aristocratic  appearance,  but  chiefly  of 
the  fact  that  he  called  my  father  "Lyovotchka"  and 
treated  him  just  as  my  father  treated  us.  He  was 
not  only  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  him,  but  was  al- 
ways teasing  him,  and  argued  with  him  like  an  elder 
person  with  a  younger.     We  were  quite  alive  to  this. 

Of  course  every  one  knew  that  there  were  no  faster 
dogs  in  the  world  than  our  black  and  white  Darling 
and  her  daughter  Winger.  Not  a  hare  could  get 
away  from  them.  But  Uncle  Seryozha  said  that  the 
gray  hares  about  us  were  sluggish  creatures,  not  at  all 
the  same  thing  as  steppe  hares,  and  neither  Darling 
nor  Winger  would  get  near  a  steppe  hare.     We  lis- 

.      177 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

tened  with  open  mouths  and  did  not  know  which  to 
believe,  papa  or  Uncle  Seryozha. 

Uncle  Seryozha  went  out  coursing  with  us  one  day, 
A  number  of  gray  hares  were  run  down,  not  one  got 
away;  Uncle  Seryozha  expressed  no  surprise,  but 
still  maintained  that  the  only  reason  was  because  they 
were  a  poor  lot  of  hares. 

We  could  not  tell  if  he  was  right  or  wrong.  Per- 
haps after  all  he  was  right,  for  he  was  more  of  a 
sportsman  than  papa  and  had  run  down  ever  so  many 
wolves,  while  we  had  never  known  papa  to  run  any 
wolves  down.  And  afterwards  papa  only  kept  dogs 
because  there  was  Agafya  Mikhailovna  to  be  thought 
of,  and  Uncle  Seryozha  gave  up  sport  because  it  was 
impossible  to  keep  dogs,  "Since  the  Emancipation 
of  the  peasants,"  he  said,  "sport  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion; there  are  no  huntsmen  to  be  had;  peasants  turn 
out  with  sticks  and  drive  the  sportsmen  off  the  fields. 
What  is  there  left  to  do  nowadays"?  Country-life 
has  become  impossible," 

In  the  summer  we  sometimes  went  over,  the  whole 
family  together,  to  pay  Uncle  Seryozha  a  visit. 

It  was  a  journey  of  twenty  miles  through  open 
country  to  Pirogovo.  On  the  road  we  passed 
Yasenki  and  Kolpna.  It  was  somewhere  there,  my 
mother  told  us,  that  papa  defended  a  soldier  before  a 
Court-martial  for  insulting  an  officer.     He  was  con- 

178 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

demned  and  taken  out  at  once  and  shot  in  the  fields. 
It  was  horrible  to  think  of.  Perhaps  it  was  in 
accordance  with  the  law,  but  to  us  children  it  was 
incomprehensible. 

Further  on  the  road  went  by  Ozerka,  past  the 
mysterious  bottomless  lake;  then  by  way  of  Cows' 
Tails  and  Sorotchinka;  and  at  last,  near  a  solitary 
shrine  in  the  open  field,  you  turned  to  the  left  off 
the  main  road,  and  in  the  distance  beyond  the  Upa 
appeared  a  handsome  church  and  a  park,  and  in  the 
depths  of  it  an  interesting-looking  two-winged  stone 
house  of  peculiar  architectural  style. 

As  you  drove  up  you  became  aware  of  a  peculiar 
and  unaccustomed  shade  of  rigid  squiredom  pervad- 
ing the  place;  not  the  sort  we  knew  at  Yasnaya,  but 
a  special  Pirogovo  sort.  You  could  already  feel  this 
atmosphere  of  squiredom  as  you  drove  through  the 
village  and  the  peasants  stopped  and  bowed  obse- 
quiously ;  you  could  feel  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  women 
and  children  who  looked  after  you  as  you  went  by; 
in  the  kitchen-boy  who  saw  the  carriage  from  afar  and 
rushed  helter-skelter  into  the  house  to  announce  the 
arrival  of  visitors;  and  in  the  whole  look  of  the 
demesne,  with  its  newly  clipped  bushes  and  its  well- 
brushed  "sweep"  sprinkled  with  fresh  sand. 

From  the  entrance-hall  you  went  into  the  winter- 
garden,  where  lemon-trees  grew  in  huge  tubs;  in  the 
zala  stood  a  big  stuffed  wolf,  and  behind  the  sofa,  on 

179 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

some  kind  of  raised  affair,  lay  a  fox  curled  up,  asleep, 
exactly  as  if  it  were  alive. 

We  were  welcomed  by  the  charming  and  always 
affectionate  Marya  Mikhailovna  and  her  daughters, 
Vera,  of  the  same  age  as  Tanya,  and  the  two  little 
ones,  Varya  (Barbara)  and  Masha. 

When  he  heard  the  commotion  Uncle  Seryozha 
also  came  in  from  his  room.  He  had  a  special  room 
of  his  own  off  the  zala.  He  slept  in  it  and  spent  the 
whole  day  there  over  his  accounts,  reckoning  up  the 
in-comings  of  the  property  and  writing  up  his 
account-books  on  a  complicated  system  of  book-keep- 
ing which  nobody  understood  but  himself.  When 
you  entered  this  room  you  had  to  do  it  quickly,  shut- 
ting the  door  behind  you  as  fast  as  you  could,  to  pre- 
vent any  flies  from  getting  in.  It  was  on  account  of 
the  flies  that  the  winter-frames  were  never  taken  out 
of  the  windows  in  this  room  and  no  one  but  Uncle 
Seryozha  himself  was  allowed  to  put  it  to  rights.^ 

Our  host  and  hostess  were  always  pleased  to  see 
their  guests  and  welcomed  us  heartily;  and  Uncle 
Seryozha  almost  always  began  to  tell  "Lyovotchka" 
about  the  latest  misfortunes  that  had  happened  on 
the  estate. 

"It 's  all  very  well  for  a  bird  of  heaven  like  you 

2  In  this  Sergei  Nikolayevitch  resembled  Levin's  clever  half- 
brother  Sergei  Ivanovitch  in  "Anna  Karenina,"  who  called  out 
to  his  visitor  to  shut  the  door  quickly  for  fear  of  the  flies  and  never 
opened  his  windows  except  at  night. 

180 


PEASANT  S    COTTAGE    NEAR    YASNAYA    I'OLYANA 


l^a*';-. 


^:^si 


A  PUBLIC  WELL  NEAR  YASNAYA  POLYAXA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

neither  to  sow  nor  to  reap ;  you  write  a  novel,  buy  up 
property  in  Samara  and  there  you  are  I  But  you 
should  try  it  here  for  a  bit.  I  've  had  to  give  the 
new  bailiff  the  sack;  he  had  been  robbing  me  all 
round.  Vasili  is  managing  again,  so  we  have  no 
coachman." 

Papa  would  smile  and  turn  the  conversation  to 
another  topic;  while  we  children  felt  that  this  was 
all  quite  as  it  ought  to  be,  for  Vasili,  who  had  been 
Uncle  Seryozha's  coachman  for  many  years,  was 
rarely  to  be  seen  on  the  box,  but  was  almost  always 
replacing  some  dishonest  bailiff  or  another. 

It  is  wonderful  how,  in  many  traits  of  his  charac- 
ter, Uncle  Seryozha  recalled  old  Prince  Bolkonski  in 
my  father's  "War  and  Peace." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  type  was  not  copied 
from  him;  for  at  the  time  when  "War  and  Peace" 
was  written.  Uncle  Seryozha  was  still  a  young  man. 
I  have  talked  the  question  over  with  his  eldest  daugh- 
ter, Vera  Sergeyevna,  and  we  were  both  astonished 
at  the  prophetic  clairvoyance  of  my  father,  who,  in 
the  relations  of  the  Prince  to  his  beloved  daughter 
Princess  Marya,  had  described  the  relations  of  Uncle 
Seryozha  to  Vera,  down  to  the  very  smallest  details. 
Just  the  same  mathematical  lessons,  the  same  shy 
and  tender  affection,  hidden  under  a  mask  of  indif- 
ference and  often  of  seeming  cruelty,  the  same  pene- 
trating comprehension  of  her  nature,  and  the  same 

183 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

indomitable  "boyardly"  aristocratic  pride,  separating 
himself  and  her  by  an  impassable  barrier  from  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  A  clearer  incarnation  of  the 
type  of  old  Prince  Bolkonski  it  is  impossible  to  im- 
agine. 

Being  an  unusually  frank  and  honest  man,  Uncle 
Seryozha  never  sought  to  conceal  any  feature  of  his 
character — except  one:  he  concealed  the  tenderness 
of  his  affections  with  the  utmost  shyness,  and  if  it 
ever  forced  itself  into  the  light  it  was  only  in  excep- 
tional circumstances  and  then  against  his  will. 

He  shared  to  a  very  marked  degree  in  a  family 
characteristic  which  showed  itself  in  my  father  too, 
namely,  an  extraordinary  restraint  in  the  expression 
of  affection,  which  was  often  concealed  under  the 
mask  of  indifference  and  sometimes  even  of  unex- 
pected harshness. 

In  the  matter  of  wit  and  sarcasm,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  strikingly  original.  He  spent  several 
winters  in  succession  with  his  family  in  Moscow. 
One  day  when  he  and  his  daughter  had  just  been  at  a 
historic  concert  given  by  Anton  Rubinstein,  and 
came  on  to  take  tea  with  us  in  Weavers'  Row,^  my 
father  asked  him  how  he  had  liked  the  concert. 

"Do  you  remember  Himbut,  Lyovotchka? 
Lieutenant  Himbut,  who  was  forester  near  Yasnaya? 
I  once  asked  him  what  was  the  happiest  moment  of 

3  Khamovniki,  a  street  in  Moscow. 

184 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

his  life.  Do  you  know  what  he  answered'?  'When 
I  was  in  the  Cadet  Corps,'  he  said,  'they  used  to  take 
down  my  breeches  now  and  again  and  lay  me  across 
a  bench  and  flog  me.  When  they  stopped,  that  was 
the  happiest  moment  of  my  life.'  Well,  it  was  only 
during  the  entr'actes^  when  Rubinstein  stopped 
playing,  that  I  really  enjoyed  myself." 

He  did  n't  always  spare  my  father.  Once  when  I 
was  out  shooting  with  a  setter  near  Pirogovo  I  drove 
in  to  Uncle  Seryozha's  to  stop  the  night. 

I  do  not  remember  the  subject  of  our  conversation, 
but  Uncle  Seryozha  averred  that  "Lyovotchka"  was 
proud. 

"He  is  always  preaching  humility  and  non-resist- 
ance, but  he  is  proud  for  all  that.  Mashenka's  ^  sister 
had  a  footman  called  Forna.  When  he  got  drunk 
he  used  to  get  under  the  staircase,  tuck  up  his  legs 
and  lie  down.  One  day  they  came  and  told  him  that 
the  Countess  was  calling  him.  'She  can  come  here 
and  look  for  me  if  she  wants  me,'  he  answered. 
Lyovotchka  is  just  the  same.  When  Dolgoruki  sent 
his  chief  secretary  Istomin  to  ask  him  to  come  and 
have  a  talk  with  him  about  Syntayef  ^  the  sectarian, 
do  you  know  what  he  answered?  'Let  him  come 
here  if  he  wants  me.'  Is  n't  that  just  like  Forna*? 
No,  Lyovotchka  is  very  proud;  nothing  would  in- 

*  Mashenka,  i.  e.  Marya  Mikhailovna,  his  wife. 
5  See   Chapter  XVIII  for  this   incident. 

185 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

duce  him  to  go;  and  he  was  quite  right;  but  it 's  no 
good  talking  of  humility." 

During  the  last  years  of  Sergei  Nikolayevitch's  life 
my  father  was  particularly  friendly  and  affectionate 
with  him  and  delighted  in  telling  him  all  that  he 
thought.  He  once  lent  him  one  of  his  books — I 
think  it  was  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  You" — 
and  asked  him  to  read  it  and  tell  him  what  he  thought 
about  it. 

Uncle  Seryozha  read  the  whole  book  through  con- 
scientiously and,  when  he  returned  it,  said:  "Do 
you  remember,  Lyovotchka,  how  we  used  to  travel 
post?  On  some  autumn  day,  when  the  mud  was 
frozen  into  hummocks,  you  would  be  sitting  in  a 
tarantds  ^  with  unyielding  frame-poles ;  "^  you  'd  be 
bumped  in  the  back,  and  bumped  in  the  sides ;  the  seat 
would  jump  out  from  under  you;  you  would  begin 
to  feel  as  if  you  could  n't  stand  any  more  of  it,  when 
suddenly  out  you  'd  bowl  onto  the  smooth  highroad, 
and  step  into  a  beautiful  Viennese  calash  drawn  by 
four  splendid  horses.  Well,  when  I  was  reading 
your  book,  there  was  only  one  place  where  I  felt  I 
had  got  into  the  calash.  That  was  a  passage  from 
Hertzen,  just  a  page,  which  you  quote.     All  the  rest, 

^  Tarantas,  a  springless  cart  for  cross-country  traveling,  where 
the  roads  are  too  rough  for  springs.  It  resembles  a  small  boat 
on   a   small   dray. 

^  Drozhina,  the  central  pole  connecting  the  fore  and  after  axle- 
trees. 

186 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

all  your  own  stuff,  was  just  jolting  in  the  taran- 
tdsr 

When  he  said  things  like  that,  Uncle  Ser5'6zha  of 
course  knew  that  my  father  would  not  be  offended 
but  would  laugh  heartily  with  him.  It  would  have 
been  difficult  to  arrive  at  a  more  unexpected  con- 
clusion: and  of  course,  no  one  but  Uncle  Seryozha 
would  have  ventured  to  say  such  a  thing  to  my 
father. 

Uncle  Seryozha  told  us  that  he  once  traveled  with 
a  lady,  a  complete  stranger,  who  belonged  to  the  order 
of  button-holing  railway  bores.  Discovering  that 
she  was  in  the  same  carriage  with  Count  Tolstoy, 
brother  of  the  famous  writer,  she  began  bothering  him 
with  questions  about  what  Lyof  Nikolayevitch  was 
writing  now,  and  whether  Sergei  Nikolayevitch  also 
wrote. 

"I  haven't  a  notion  what  my  brother  may  be 
writing,  madam;  and  as  for  myself,  I  never  write 
anything  but  telegrams,"  answered  Uncle  Seryozha 
curtly,  wishing  to  shut  her  up. 

"What  a  pity !  How  often  it  happens  like  that  in 
life  I  One  brother  has  all  the  gifts,  and  another 
none,"  replied  the  lady  sympathetically,  and  relapsed 
into  silence. 

The  question  put  to  Sergei  Nikolayevitch  by  the 
lady  in  the  railway  carriage  as  to  whether  he  also 
wrote,  must  occur  very  forcibly  to  all  who  knew  this 

187 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

clever  and  original  man  intimately.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  if  he  had  written  he  would  have  gone  far. 
He  had  plenty  of  matter  for  writing. 

Sitting  year  after  year  in  his  room,  he  spent  his 
time  in  thinking  and  in  living  his  own  internal  life. 
He  would  often  begin  to  groan  suddenly  for  no  ap- 
parent reason  and  cry,  "Ay,  ay,  ay  .  .  .  ay,  ay  .  .  . 
ay  I"  His  family  could  hear  these  groans  many 
rooms  away,  and  knew  that  it  was  "all  right" ;  an  idea 
had  struck  him,  that  was  all. 

It  was  only  very,  very  rarely,  when  some  one  near 
and  dear  to  him  arrived,  that  he  let  himself  go,  and 
in  animated  and  imaginative  monologue  developed 
his  ideas  and  observations,  which  were  always 
original,  exact,  and  well-digested.  Uncle  Seryozha 
thought  only  for  his  own  sake,  and,  like  the  self-confi- 
dent egoist  that  my  father  describes  him  as  in  the 
fragment  of  his  reminiscences  that  I  have  cited 
above,  never  felt  any  necessity  for  sharing  his  intel- 
lectual adventures  with  others.  And  that  was  his 
great  misfortune.  He  was  deprived  of  that  feeling 
of  satisfaction  which  the  writer  experiences  when  he 
pours  out  the  superfluity  of  his  ego  on  paper,  and  for 
want  of  this  safety-valve  he  overloaded  himself  and 
became  an  intellectual  Stylites. 

A.  A.  Fet  in  his  "Reminiscences"  describes  the 
character  of  the  three  Tolstoy  brothers  with  ex- 
traordinary perspicacity : 

188 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

I  am  convinced  that  the  fundamental  type  of  all  the 
three  Tolstoy  brothers  was  identical,  just  as  the  type  of  all 
maple-leaves  is  identical,  in  spite  of  the  variety  of  their 
configuration.  And  if  I  set  myself  to  develop  the  idea,  I 
could  show  to  what  a  degree  all  three  brothers  shared  in 
that  passionate  enthusiasm,  without  which  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  one  of  them  to  turn  into  the  creative 
artist  Lyof  Tolstoy.  The  difference  of  their  attitude  to 
life  was  determined  by  the  difference  of  the  ways  in  which 
they  turned  their  back  on  their  unfulfilled  dreams.  Nikolai 
quenched  his  ardor  in  skeptical  derision ;  Lyof  renounced  his 
unrealized  dreams  with  silent  reproach;  and  Sergei,  with 
morbid  misanthropy.  The  greater  the  original  store  of 
love  in  such  characters,  the  stronger,  if  only  for  a  time,  is 
their  resemblance  to  "Timon  of  Athens."  ("My  Reminis- 
cences," 1848-89,  by  A.  Fet.  Part  I,  p.  296  of  the  Russian 
edition.) 

In  the  winter  of  1901-1902  my  father  was  ill  in 
the  Crimea,  and  for  a  long  time  lay  between  life  and 
death.  Uncle  Seryozha,  who  felt  himself  getting 
weaker,  could  not  bring  himself  to  leave  Pirogovo, 
and  anxiously  followed  the  progress  of  my  father's 
illness  from  his  own  home  by  means  of  the  letters 
which  several  members  of  our  family  wrote  to  him, 
and  by  the  bulletins  In  the  newspapers. 

When  my  father  began  to  recover,  I  returned 
home,  and  on  the  way  from  the  Crimea  went  to  Piro- 
govo, in  order  to  tell  Uncle  Seryozha  personally 
about  his  illness  and  his  actual  condition.  I  remem- 
ber how  joyfully  and  gratefully  he  welcomed  me. 

189 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"How  glad  I  am  that  you  came  I  Now  tell  me  all 
about  it.  Who  is  with  him?  All  of  them'?  And 
who  nurses  him  most?  Do  you  go  on  duty  in  turn? 
And  at  night  too?  He  can't  get  out  of  bed.  Ah, 
that 's  the  worst  of  all  I  It  will  be  my  turn  to  die 
soon;  a  year  sooner  or  later,  what  does  it  matter? 
But  to  lie  helpless,  a  burden  to  every  one,  to  have 
others  to  do  everything  for  you,  to  lift  you  and  help 
you  to  sit  up — that 's  what 's  so  awful !  .  .  .  And 
how  does  he  endure  it?  Got  used  to  it,  you  say? 
No.  I  cannot  imagine  having  Vera  to  change  my 
linen  and  wash  me.  Of  course  she  would  say  that 
it's  nothing  to  her;  but  for  me  it  would  be  awful. 
And  tell  me,  is  he  afraid  t;o  die?  Does  he  say  No? 
Very  likely :  he  's  a  strong  man,  he  may  be  able  to 
conquer  the  fear  of  it ;  yes,  yes  .  .  .  perhaps  he 's  not 
afraid ;  but  still  .  .  .  You  say  he  struggles  with  the 
feeling?  .  .  .  Why,  of  course,  what  else  can  one  do? 
I  wanted  to  go  and  be  with  him ;  but  I  thought,  how 
can  I?  I  shall  crock  up  myself,  and  then  there  will 
be  two  invalids  instead  of  one.  Yes,  you  have  told 
me  a  great  deal ;  every  detail  is  interesting.  It  is  not 
death  that 's  so  terrible,  it 's  illness,  helplessness,  and 
above  all,  the  fear  that  you  are  a  burden  to  others. 
That 's  awful,  awful  I" 

Uncle  Seryozha  died  in  1 904  of  cancer  in  the  face. 
This  is  what  my  aunt,  Maria  Nikolayevna,®  the  nun, 

8  Tolstoy's  sister.    See  Chap.  XXV. 

190 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

told  me  about  his  death.  Ahiiost  to  the  last  day  he 
was  on  his  legs,  and  would  not  let  any  one  nurse  him. 
He  was  in  full  possession  of  his  faculties  and  con- 
sciously prepared  for  death. 

Besides  his  own  family,  the  aged  Maria  Mikhai- 
lovna  and  her  daughters,  his  sister,  Maria  Nikola- 
yevna,  who  told  me  the  story,  was  with  him  too,  and 
from  hour  to  hour  they  expected  the  arrival  of  my 
father  for  whom  they  had  sent  a  messenger  to  Yas- 
naya.  They  were  all  troubled  with  the  difficult  ques- 
tion whether  the  dying  man  would  want  to  receive 
the  Holy  Communion  before  he  died.  Knowing 
Sergei  Nikolayevitch's  disbelief  in  the  religion  of  the 
Church,  no  one  dared  to  mention  the  subject  to  him 
and  the  unhappy  Maria  Mikhailovna  hovered  round 
his  room  wringing  her  hands  and  praying.  They 
awaited  my  father's  arrival  impatiently,  but  were 
secretly  afraid  of  his  influence  over  his  brother,  and 
hoped  against  hope  that  Sergei  Nikolayevitch  would 
send  for  the  priest  before  his  arrival. 

"Imagine  our  surprise  and  delight,"  said  Maria 
Tolstoy,  "when  Lyovotchka  came  out  of  his  room 
and  told  Maria  Mikhailovna  that  Seryozha  wanted 
a  priest  sent  for.  I  do  not  know  what  they  had  been 
talking  about,  but  when  Seryozha  said  that  he  wished 
to  take  the  Communion  Lyovotchka  answered  that  he 
was  quite  right  and  at  once  came  and  told  us  what 
he  wanted." 

191 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

My  father  stayed  about  a  week  at  Pirogovo  and 
left  two  days  before  my  uncle  died.  When  he  re- 
ceived a  telegram  to  say  he  was  worse  he  drove  over 
again,  but  arrived  too  late;  he  was  no  longer  living. 
He  carried  his  body  out  from  the  house  with  his  own 
hands,  and  bore  it  himself  to  the  churchyard.  When 
he  got  back  to  Yasnaya  he  spoke  with  touching  affec- 
tion of  his  parting  with  this  "inscrutable  and  be- 
loved" brother,  who  was  so  strange  and  so  remote 
from  him  but  at  the  same  time  so  near  and  so  akin. 


192 


TOLSTOY    AND    UR.    U.    L.    NIKITIX    IN    THE    CRIMEA 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FET,    STRAKHOF,    GAY. 

'"W"  "IT  T^HAT 'S  this  saber  doing  here'?"  asked 
%/  %/      a  young  guardsman,  Lieutenant  Af  a- 

w  »  nasyi  Afanasyevitch  Fet,  of  the  foot- 
man one  day  as  he  entered  the  hall  of  Ivan  Sergeye- 
vitch  Turgenyef's  flat  in  St.  Petersburg  in  the  middle 
of  the  fifties. 

"It  is  Count  Tolstoy's  saber;  he  is  asleep  in  the 
drawing-room.  And  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  is  in  his 
study  having  breakfast,"  replied  Zakhar. 

"During  the  hour  I  spent  with  Turgenyef,"  says 
Fet  in  his  Reminiscences,  "we  talked  in  low  voices 
for  fear  of  waking  the  Count  who  was  asleep  the 
other  side  of  the  door. 

"  'He  's  like  that  all  the  time,'  "  said  Turgenyef 
smiling;  "  'Ever  since  he  got  back  from  his  battery 
at  Sebastopol,^  and  came  to  stay  here,  he  has  been 
going  the  pace.  Orgies,  Gipsies,  and  gambling  all 
night  long;  and  then  he  sleeps  like  a  dead  man  till 
two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  I  did  my  best  to  stop 
him,  but  have  given  it  up  as  a  bad  job.' 

1  Tolstoy  was  in  the  artillery,  and  commanded  a  battery  in  the 
Crimea. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"  Tt  was  in  this  visit  to  St.  Petersburg  that  I  and 
Tolstoy  became  acquainted,  but  the  acquaintance  was 
of  a  purely  formal  character,  as  I  had  not  yet  seen  a 
line  of  his  writings,  and  had  never  heard  of  his  name 
in  literature,  except  that  Turgenyef  mentioned  his 
"Stories  of  Childhood."  '  "  ^ 

Soon  after  this  my  father  came  to  know  Fet 
pretty  intimately;  they  struck  up  a  firm  and  lasting 
friendship  and  established  a  correspondence  which 
lasted  almost  till  Fet's  death.  It  was  only  during 
the  last  year  of  Fet's  life,  when  my  father  was  en- 
tirely absorbed  in  his  new  ideas,  which  were  at  vari- 
ance with  Afanasyi  Afanasyevitch's  whole  philoso- 
phy of  life,  that  they  became  at  all  estranged  and 
met  more  rarely. 

From  the  very  first  stages  of  their  acquaintance 
their  paths  were  parallel.  They  got  to  know  each 
other  when  they  were  both  young  officers  and  begin- 
ners in  literature.  Then  they  both  married — Fet 
considerably  before  my  father — and  both  settled  in 
the  country. 

Fet  lived  at  his  farm,  Stepanovka,  in  Mtsenski  Dis- 
trict,^ not  far  from  Turgenyef's  property,  Spasskoye- 
Lutovinovo,  and  at  one  time  Turgenyef  and  my 
father,  and  his  elder  brother  Nikolai,  all  used  to  meet 
at  Fet's.     They  went  out  shooting  black-cock  and 

2  Tolstoy's  "Childhood,  Boyhood,  Early  Manhood"  was  published 
in  1856. 

3  In  the  province  of  Oryol. 

196 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

often  migrated  from  there  to  Spasskoye  and  from 
Spasskoye  to  my  uncle's  at  Nikolsko-Vyazemskoye. 
It  was  at  Fet's,  at  Stepanovka,  that  my  father  and 
Turgenyef  quarreled. 

Before  the  railway  was  made,  when  people  still 
had  to  drive,  Fet  always  used  to  turn  in  at  Yasnaya 
Poly  ana  to  see  my  father  on  his  way  into  Moscow, 
and  these  visits  became  an  established  custom.  Aft- 
erwards, when  the  railway  was  constructed  and  my 
father  was  married,  Afanasyi  Afanasyevitch  always 
broke  his  journey  to  come  and  see  us  as  he  passed, 
and  if  he  omitted  to  do  so,  my  father  used  to  write 
him  a  letter  of  earnest  reproaches  and  he  used  to  apol- 
ogize as  if  he  had  been  guilty  of  some  fault. 

In  those  distant  times  of  which  I  am  speak- 
ing my  father  was  bound  to  Fet  by  a  common 
interest  in  agriculture  as  well  as  literature.  Some 
of  my  father's  letters  of  the  sixties  are  curious 
in  this  respect.  For  instance,  in  i860,  he  writes  a 
long  dissertation  on  Turgenyef 's  novel  "On  the  Eve" 
which  had  just  come  out,  and  at  the  end  adds  a  post- 
script: "What  is  the  price  of  a  set  of  the  best  qual- 
ity of  veterinary  instruments'?  Also  of  a  set  of 
lancets  and  bleeding-cups  for  human  use'?"  In  an- 
other letter  there  is  a  postscript:  "When  you  are 
next  in  Oryol  buy  me  six  hundreciweight  of  various 
ropes,  reins,  and  traces,"  and,  on  the  same  page:  "The 
passage,   'Tender  art  thou,'   and  the  whole  thing, 

197 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

is  charming.  You  have  never  done  anything  better; 
it  is  all  charming."  The  quotation  is  from  Fet's 
poem,  "The  lingering  clouds'  last  throng  flies  over 
us." 

But  it  was  not  only  community  of  interests  that 
brought  my  father  and  Afanasyi  Afanasyevitch  to- 
gether. The  reason  of  their  intimacy  lay  in  the  fact 
that,  as  my  father  expressed  it,  they  "thought  alike 
with  their  heart's  mind." 

"Suddenly,  from  various  imperceptible  data,  it 
became  clear  to  me  how  deeply  your  nature  was  allied 
to  mine,"  writes  my  father  to  Fet  in  1876;  and  in  the 
autumn  of  the  same  year  he  writes:  "It  is  extraor- 
dinary how  closely  we  are  allied  in  mind  and  heart." 

My  father  said  of  Fet  that  his  chief  merit  was  that 
he  thought  quite  independently,  in  his  own  ideas  and 
images,  instead  of  borrowing  ideas  and  images  from 
other  people;  and  he  counted  him,  together  with 
Tyutchef,"*  among  our  best  poets. 

Often,  when  Fet  was  dead,  my  father  would  recall 
some  of  his  poems  and,  singling  me  out  for  some 
reason,  would  say:  "Ilyusha,  repeat  those  lines  T 
thought'  ...  I  can't  remember  what  he  thought; 
or  'The  world  's  asleep.'  You  must  know  them" ; 
and  he  used  to  listen  with  delight  while  I  repeated 

*A  poet  of  an  older  generation;  a  friend  of  Heine;  regarded 
as  the  chief  Russian  poet  of  his  day  in  1854  by  Turgenyef  who 
preferred  his  "pure  lyricalness"  to  the  "captivating  but  rather  monoto- 
nous grace  of  Fet." 

198 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

them,  prompting  me  in  his  favorite  passages,  with 
tears  sometimes  rising  to  his  eyes. 

•  ••••••• 

I  can  remember  Fet's  visits  from  my  earliest  child- 
hood. He  almost  always  brought  his  wife,  Marya 
Petrovna,  with  him,  and  often  stayed  several  days. 

He  had  a  long  black  beard,  turning  gray,  a  clearly 
marked  Jewish  type  of  face  and  little  feminine 
hands  with  remarkably  long,  well-cared-for  nails. 
He  spoke  in  a  deep  bass  voice  and  broke  re- 
peatedly into  a  long-drawn  cough,  that  rattled  like 
small  shot.  Then  he  would  stop  and  rest,  with  his 
head  bent  down,  and  a  long  Hm!  .  .  .  hm-m-m! 
.  .  .  stroke  his  beard  awhile  and  then  go  on  talking. 

Sometimes  he  was  extremely  witty  and  enter- 
tained the  whole  house  with  his  jokes.  His  jokes 
were  all  the  better  because  when  they  came  they  were 
always  quite  unexpected  even  by  himself.  I  think  it 
was  Fet  who  was  responsible  for  our  footman  Yegor's 
discomfiture.  While  Yegor  was  handing  round  the 
blancmange,  dressed  up  for  "company"  in  a  red 
waistcoat,  one  of  the  visitor's  jokes  was  too  much  for 
him  and  he  burst  out  laughing  so  lustily  that  he  had 
to  put  the  dish  down  on  the  floor  and  run  out  of  the 
room,  to  the  general  delight  of  the  whole  company. 

My  sister  Tanya  used  to  give  a  capital  imitation 
of  Fet  reciting  his  own  poetry: 

"Here  is  the  portrait,  li-i-ike  and  yet  unli-i-ike, 

199 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

hm  .  .  .  hm  .  .  .  Wherein  the  li-i-ikeness  and  the 
unli-i-ikeness  li-i-ie,  hm  .  .  .  hm  .  .  .  hm  .  .  . 
hm-m-m-m." 

In  early  childhood  one  is  not  much  interested  In 
poetry.  Poetry,  one  imagines,  was  invented  only 
for  us  to  have  to  learn  it  by  heart.  I  got  so  sick  of 
Pushkin's  "The  children  ran  into  the  hut"  ^  and 
Lermontof's  "Angel"  ^  which  I  was  made  to  learn, 
that  I  never  relished  poetry  for  a  long  time  after- 
wards and  sulked  over  every  poem  as  if  it  were  a 
punishment.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore, 
that  I  quite  disliked  Fet  as  a  child  and  supposed 
that  he  and  papa  were  friends  only  because  he  was 
"rather  an  ass."  It  was  only  in  much  later  years  that 
I  came  to  understand  him  and  to  love  him  as  a  poet, 
as  he  deserves  to  be  loved  and  understood. 


I  also  remember  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  Strakhof's 
visits.  He  was  a  remarkably  quiet  and  modest 
man.  He  appeared  at  Yasnaya  Polyana  in  the 
beginning  of  the  seventies  and  from  that  time  forth 
came  and  stayed  with  us  almost  every  summer  till 
he  died. 

He  had  big,  gray  eyes,  which  he  always  kept  wide 

s  The  first  line  of  Pushkin's  poem  "Tlie  Drowned  Man." 
8  English    readers   may   know   this   as   a   song   of  Rubinstein's,   a 
duet  for  female  voices. 

200 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

open,  as  if  in  astonishment;  a  long  beard  with  a 
touch  of  gray  in  it;  and  when  he  spoke,  at  the  end 
of  every  sentence  he  gave  a  shy  laugh :  Ha,  ha,  ha ! 
When  he  addressed  papa  he  always  said  "Lef  Nikol- 
ayevitch"  instead  of  "Lyof  Nikolayevitch"  like 
other  people,  pronouncing  the  e  thinJ 

He  always  slept  downstairs  in  my  father's  study, 
and  spent  his  whole  day  there  reading  or  writing, 
with  a  thick  cigarette,  which  he  rolled  himself,  in  his 
mouth. 

An  hour  before  dinner,  when  the  katki  or  outside- 
car,  drawn  by  two  horses,  was  brought  round  to  the 
front  door  and  we  all  assembled  to  drive  to  the 
bathing-place,  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  used  to  come 
out  of  his  room  in  a  soft  gray  hat,  with  a  towel  and 
walking-stick,  and  drive  with  us.  Every  one  with- 
out exception,  grown-ups  and  children  alike,  was 
fond  of  him,  and  I  cannot  imagine  his  ever  having 
been  disagreeable  to  any  one. 

He  used  to  repeat  a  humorous  poem  beginning 
"Fades  the  leaf"  by  Kozma  Prutkof  ^  in  the  most 

■^  The  Russian  vowel  sound  yo  always  represents  an  etymological 
e,  as  'vyoz,  he  carried  (in  a  cart)  from  'vezti,  to  carry.  The  name 
Lyof,  Leon,  is  generally  distinguished  from  its  congener,  lef,  a  lion, 
by  this  thickening  of  the  vowel. 

8  Kozma  Prutkof  was  the  pseudonym  under  which  three  poets, 
including  the  other  Tolstoy,  Count  Alexey,  published  some  comic 
and  satirical  verses  in  the  fifties.  The  point  of  this  one  was  that 
in  the  autumn  Junker  Schmidt  was  gloomy  and  wanted  to  shoot 
himself,  but  after  thinking  it  over  repented  in  the  Spring! 

201 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

delightful  manner,  and  we  children  used  to  go  on 

plaguing  him  with  demands  for  it,  until  he  broke  out 

laughing  and  recited  the  whole  thing  from  beginning 

to  end. 

"Oh,  Junker  Schmidt,  believe  me  truly 
Summer  will  come  back," 

he  used  to  wind  up  emphatically,  and  never  failed 
to  grin  and  say  "Ha,  ha,  ha  I"  at  the  last  word. 

I  was  particularly  fond  of  him  because  he  gave  me 
a  wonderful  illustrated  butterfly-book  and  taught  me 
how  to  dry  specimens  for  my  collection. 

Strakhof  and  my  father  came  together  originally 
on  a  purely  business  footing.  When  the  first  part  of 
my  father's  Alphabet  and  Reading  Book  was 
printed  Strakhof  had  charge  of  the  proof-reading. 
This  led  to  a  correspondence  between  them  of  a  busi- 
ness character  at  first,  later  developing  into  a  philo- 
sophical and  friendly  one. 

While  he  was  writing  "Anna  Karenina,"  my 
father  set  great  store  by  his  opinion  and  valued  his 
critical  instinct  very  highly.  "It  is  enough  for  me 
that  that  is  your  opinion,"  he  writes  in  a  letter  of 
1872,  probably  apropos  of  the  Alphabet. 

In  1876,  apropos  of  "Anna  Karenina"  this  time, 
my  father  writes :  "You  ask  me  whether  you  have 
understood  my  novel  aright,  and  what  I  think  of 
your  opinion.  Of  course  you  understood  it  aright. 
Of  course  I  am  overjoyed  at  your  understanding  of 

202 


o 
r 


o 
r 

K 
<^ 

H 

n 

a 

t/) 

H 

X 

o 


lg^«*^^---'«a^^ 


t/5 

w 
o 


S 

k; 

z 

o 

<; 
H 

n 

CE 

C 
X 

o 

15 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

it;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  everybody  will  under- 
stand it  as  you  do." 

But  it  was  not  only  his  critical  work  diat  drew  my 
father  to  Strakhof.^  My  father  disliked  critics  as 
a  rule  and  used  to  say  that  the  only  people  who 
took  to  criticism  were  those  who  had  no  creative  fac- 
ulty of  their  own.  "The  stupid  ones  judge  the 
clever  ones,"  he  said  of  professional  critics.  What 
he  valued  most  in  Strakhof  was  the  profound  and 
penetrating  thinker.  Even  in  general  conversation, 
whenever  my  father  put  him  any  scientific  question 
— Strakhof  was  a  scientist  by  education — I  remem- 
ber the  extraordinary  exactness  and  clearness  of  his 
answers.     It  was  like  a  lesson  by  a  good  teacher. 

"Do  you  know  the  thing  that  most  struck  me 
about  you*?"  writes  my  father  in  one  of  his  letters. 
"It  was  the  expression  of  your  face  when  you  once 
came  in  from  the  garden  by  the  balcony  door,  not 
knowing  that  I  was  in  the  study.  This  expres- 
sion, remote,  concentrated  and  severe,  explained  you 
to  me,  of  course  with  the  help  of  all  that  you  had 
written  and  said.  I  am  convinced  that  you  are  pre- 
destined for  a  purely  philosophical  career.  .  .  .  You 
have  one  quality  which  I  never  met  in  any  other 
Russian ;  that  is,  besides  having  clearness  and  brevity 
in   expression,    you   have   softness   combined    with 

s  Strakhof   was   a    literary  critic   by  profession   and    achieved    a 
considerable  celebrity. 

205 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

strength;  you  do  not  tear  a  thing  with  your  teeth, 
but  with  soft  strong  paws." 

Strakhof  was  a  "real  friend"  of  my  father's — my 
father  described  him  so  himself — and  I  recall  his 
memory  with  deep  affection  and  respect. 

At  last  I  have  come  to  the  memory  of  the  man  who 
was  nearer  in  spirit  to  my  father  than  any  other 
human  being,  namely  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  Gay. 

Grandfather  Gay,  as  we  used  to  call  him,  made  my 
father's  acquaintance  in  1882.  While  living  on  his 
farm  in  the  Province  of  Tchernigof,  he  chanced  to 
read  my  father's  pamphlet  "On  the  Census,"  and 
finding  a  solution  in  it  of  the  very  questions  which 
were  troubling  him  too  at  the  time,  he  started  out 
without  delay  and  hurried  into  Moscow. 

I  remember  his  first  arrival,  and  I  have  always 
retained  the  impression  that  from  the  very  first  words 
they  exchanged  he  and  my  father  understood  each 
other  and  found  themselves  speaking  the  same  lan- 
guage. 

Just  like  my  father,  Gay  was  at  this  time  passing 
through  a  great  spiritual  crisis ;  and,  traveling  almost 
the  same  road  as  my  father  in  his  search  after  truth, 
he  had  arrived  at  the  study  of  the  Gospel  and  a  new 
understanding  of  It. 

"For  the  personality  of  Christ,"  writes  my  sister 
Tatyana,  in  her  article  on  him  called  "Friends  and 

206 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Visitors  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,"  ^'^  "he  entertained  a 
passionate  and  tender  affection,  as  if  for  a  near  and 
familiar  friend  whom  he  loved  with  all  the  strength 
of  his  soul."  Often,  during  heated  arguments, 
Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  would  take  from  his  pocket 
the  Gospel,  which  he  always  carried  about  with  him 
and  read  out  some  passage  from  it  appropriate  to  the 
subj  ect  in  hand.  "This  book  contains  everything  that 
a  man  needs,"  he  used  to  say  on  these  occasions.  While 
reading  the  Gospel  he  often  looked  up  at  the  person 
he  was  talking  to  and  went  on  reading  without  look- 
ing down  at  the  book  again.  His  face  glowed  at 
such  moments  with  so  much  inward  joy,  that  one 
could  see  how  near  and  dear  the  words  he  was  reading 
were  to  his  heart.  He  knew  the  whole  Gospel  almost 
by  heart,  but  he  said  that  every  time  he  read  it  he 
enjoyed  a  new  and  genuine  spiritual  delight.  He 
said  that  not  only  was  everything  intelligible  to  him 
in  the  Gospel,  but  that  when  he  read  it  he  seemed  to 
be  reading  in  his  own  soul  and  felt  himself  capable  of 
rising  higher  and  higher  towards  God  and  merging 
himself  in  Him. 

When  he  came  to  Weavers'  Row,  Nikolai  Niko 
hiyevitch  offered  my  father  to  paint  a  portrait  of  my 
sister  Tanya.     "In  return  for  all  the  good  you  have 
done  me,"  he  said.     My  father  asked  him  to  paint 
my  mother  instead,  and  the  next  day  Gay  brought 

10  Vyestnik  Evropy,  November,   1904. — I.  T. 

207 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

paints  and  canvas  and  set  to  work.  I  do  not  remem- 
ber how  long  he  was  over  it,  but  in  the  end,  in  spite 
of  the  innumerable  remarks  which  were  volunteered 
on  every  hand  by  the  spectators  interested  in  his 
work,  all  of  which  Gay  listened  to  attentively  and 
took  into  consideration,  or  perhaps  because  of  those 
observations,  the  portrait  was  a  failure,  and  Nikolai 
Nikolayevitch  destroyed  it  with  his  own  hands. 

As  a  scrupulous  artist  he  would  not  content  him- 
self with  a  merely  external  resemblance,  and  when 
he  had  painted  "a  lady  in  a  velvet  dress,  with  four 
thousand  pounds  in  her  pocket"  he  was  disgusted 
with  the  result,  and  resolved  to  do  the  whole  thing 
afresh.  It  was  not  till  some  years  afterwards,  when 
he  knew  my  mother  better  and  loved  her  that  he 
painted  the  portrait  of  her,  three-quarter  length,  with 
my  three-year-old  sister  Sasha  in  her  arms. 

"Grandfather"  often  came  and  stayed  with  us 
both  in  Moscow  and  at  Yasnaya  and  from  the  mo- 
ment of  first  acquaintance  he  became  quite  one  of  the 
family.  When  he  painted  my  father's  portrait  in 
his  study  in  Moscow,  my  father  got  so  used  to  his 
presence,  that  he  paid  no  attention  to  him  whatever 
and  worked  as  if  he  were  not  in  the  room.  It  was 
in  this  study  that  "Grandfather"  slept. 

He  had  an  extraordinarily  charming  and  intel- 
lectual face.  His  long  gray  curls,  hanging  all  round 
his  bald  head,  and  his  wide-open  intelligent  eyes, 

208 


; 


/ 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

gave  him  a  sort  of  biblical,  prophetic  look.  When 
he  got  excited  in  conversation — and  he  always  got 
excited  whenever  Gospel  doctrine  or  Art  was  touched 
on — with  his  shining  eyes  and  large  energetic  ges- 
tures, he  gave  the  impression  of  a  missionary 
preacher,  and  it  is  odd  that  even  when  I  was  sixteen 
or  seventeen  years  old  and  religious  questions  had  no 
interest  for  me,  I  loved  to  listen  to  "Grandfather's" 
sermons  and  was  never  bored  by  them.  One  may 
infer  therefore  that  they  gave  the  impression  of  great 
sincerity  and  love. 

Under  my  father's  influence  Nikolai  Nikolaye- 
vitch  took  once  more  to  artistic  work,  which  he  had 
hitherto  given  up  for  some  time,^^  and  his  last  pro- 
ductions "Christ  before  Pilate,"  "What  is  Truth?"  '^ 
"The  Crucifixion"  and  others  are  the  fruit  of  his  new 
understanding  and  interpretation  of  Gospel  sub- 
jects, greatly  inspired  in  him  by  my  father.  Before 
beginning  a  picture.  Gay  used  to  nurse  it  in  his  head 
for  a  long  time,  and  always  imparted  his  intentions 
in  conversation  or  by  letter  to  my  father,  who  was 
keenly  interested  in  his  ideas  and  sincerely  delighted 

11  When  he  made  Tolstoy's  acquaintance  he  had  some  political 
post  in  Little  Russia. 

12  Gay's  "What  is  Truth?"  is  reproduced  in  Mr.  Aylmer  Maude's 
excellent  book,  "The  Life  of  Tolstoy"  (from  which  many  of  the 
notes  in  this  translation  are  drawn),  together  with  the  portrait  of 
Tolstoy  painted  in  his  study  at  Moscow,  and  portraits  of  the 
daughters,  Tanya  and  "Little"  Masha.  Gay  also  carved  a  bust 
of  Tolstoy,  and  illustrated  "What  Men  Live  By." 

209 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

in  his  penetrating  discernment  and  masterly  tech- 
nique. 

Nikolai  Nikolayevitch's  friendship  was  very  dear 
to  my  father.  He  was  the  first  man  who  whole- 
heartedly shared  his  convictions  and  loved  him  with- 
out reserve.  Having  set  out  in  search  of  truth  and 
serving  it,  as  they  did,  with  all  their  might,  they 
found  support  in  one  another  and  told  one  another 
of  their  kindred  experiences.  Just  as  my  father 
carefully  followed  Gay's  artistic  work,  so  Gay  never 
let  a  word  that  my  father  wrote  escape  him ;  he  copied 
out  his  manuscripts  himself  and  begged  us  all  to 
send  him  everything  new  that  he  produced.  They 
both  gave  up  smoking  and  became  vegetarians  at  the 
same  time. 

They  agreed  also  in  their  love  of  manual  labor 
and  in  the  realization  of  the  necessity  for  it. 

It  appeared  that  Gay  was  very  good  at  building 
stoves  ^^  and  that  he  did  all  the  stove-building  at 
home  on  his  farm  for  his  own  people  and  for  the 
peasants  in  the  village.  When  my  father  heard  this, 
he  asked  him  to  make  a  stove  for  a  widow  at  Yas- 
naya,  for  whom  he  had  just  built  a  clay  house.^^ 
"Grandfather"  put  on  his  apron,  and  set  about  it  at 
once.  He  was  master-builder  and  my  father  was  his 
"mate." 

1'^  The  large  brick  stoves,  that  is,  which  stand  out  from  the  wall 
in  Russian  houses. 

1*  Of  soft  clay  held  together  by  straw. 

210 


\ 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Nikolai  Nikoliiyevitch  died  in  1904. 

When  the  telegram  arrived  at  Yasnaya  announc- 
ing his  death,  my  sisters  Tatyana  and  Masha  were  so 
overwhelmed  by  the  news  that  they  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  tell  my  father.  My  mother  had  to 
undertake  the  painful  duty  of  showing  him  the  tele- 
gram herself. 


211 


CHAPTER  XIV 

TURGENYEF 

I  DO  not  mean  to  recount  all  the  misunderstand- 
ings which  existed  between  my  father  and 
Turgenyef,  and  which  ended  in  a  downright 
quarrel  in  1861.  The  actual  external  facts  of  that 
story  are  common  property  and  there  is  no  need  to 
repeat  them/  According  to  general  opinion,  "the 
quarrel  between  the  two  greatest  writers  of  the  day" 
arose  out  of  their  literary  rivalry.  It  is  my  intention 
to  show  cause  against  this  generally  received  opinion, 
and  before  I  come  to  Turgenyef's  visits  to  Yasnaya 
Polyana,  I  want  to  make  as  clear  as  I  can  the  real 
reason  of  the  perpetual  discords  between  these  two 
good-hearted  people,  who  had  a  cordial  affection  for 
each  other,  discords  which  led  in  the  end  to  an  out- 
and-out  quarrel  and  the  exchange  of  mutual  defiance. 
As  far  as  I  know,  my  father  never  had  any  serious 
difference  with  any  human  being  during  the  whole 
course   of   his   existence,    except   Turgenyef.     And 

1  Fet,  at  whose  house  the  quarrel  took  place,  tells  all  about  it  in 
his  Memoirs  (See  Aylmer  Maude's  "Life").  Tolstoy  dogmatized 
about  ladylike  charity,  apropos  of  Turgenyef's  daughter.  Turgen- 
yef, in  a  fit  of  nerves,  threatened  to  box  his  ears.  Tolstoy  chal- 
lenged him  to  a  duel,  and  Turgenyef  apologized. 

212 


THE   DAY  S   MAIL 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Turgenyef,  in  a  letter  to  my  father  in  1865,  writes: 
"You  are  the  only  man  with  whom  I  have  ever 
had  misunderstandings."  Whenever  my  father  re- 
lated his  quarrel  with  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  he  took  all 
the  blame  for  it  on  himself.  Turgenyef,  immedi- 
ately after  the  quarrel,  wrote  a  letter  apologizing  to 
my  father  and  never  sought  to  justify  his  own  part 
in  it. 

Why  was  it  that,  as  Turgenyef  himself  put  it,  his 
"constellation"  and  my  father's  "moved  in  the  ether 
with  unquestioned  enmity"'? 

This  is  what  my  sister  Tatyana  wrote  on  the  sub- 
ject in  her  article  "Turgenyef,"  published  in  the 
Supplement  to  the  Novoye  Vremya^  February  2, 
1908: 

All  question  of  Hterary  rivalry,  it  seems  to  me,  is  utterly 
beside  the  mark.  Turgenyef,  from  the  very  outset  of  my 
father's  Uterary  career,  acknowledged  his  wonderful  tal- 
ents, and  never  dreamed  of  rivalry  with  him.  From  the 
moment  when,  so  early  as  1854,  he  wrote  to  Kolbasin,  "If 
Heaven  only  grant  Tolstoy  life,  I  confidently  hope  that 
he  will  surprise  us  all,"  he  never  ceased  to  follow  my 
father's  work  with  interest  and  always  expressed  his  un- 
bounded admiration  of  it. 

"When  this  young  wine  has  done  feiunenting,"  he 
writes  to  Druzhinin  ^  in  1856,  "the  result  will  be  a 
liquor  worthy  of  the  gods." 

2  Druzhinin,  a  well  known  critic  of  the  fifties. 

215 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

In  1857  he  writes  to  Polonski :  ^  "This  man  will 
go  far,  and  leave  deep  traces  behind  him." 

Nevertheless,  somehow  these  two  men  never  could 
"hit  it  off"  together.  When  one  reads  Turgenyef's 
letters  to  my  father,  one  sees  that  from  the  very  be- 
ginning of  their  acquaintance  misunderstandings 
were  always  arising,  which  they  continually  endeav- 
ored to  smooth  down  or  to  forget,  but  which  arose 
again  after  a  time — sometimes  in  another  form — 
necessitating  new  explanations  and  reconciliations. 

In  1865  Turgenyef  writes  to  my  father: 

Your  letter  took  some  time  reaching  me,  dear  Lyof  Nik- 
olayevitch.  Let  me  begin  by  saying  that  I  am  very  grate- 
ful to  you  for  sending  it  to  me.  I  shall  never  cease  to  love 
you  and  to  value  your  friendship,  although,  probably 
through  my  fault,  each  of  us  will  long  feel  considerable 
awkwardness  in  the  presence  of  the  other.  ...  I  think 
that  you  yourself  understand  the  reason  of  this  awkwardness 
of  which  I  speak.  You  are  the  only  man  with  whom  I 
have  ever  had  misunderstandings.  They  have  arisen,  per- 
versely enough,  from  my  unwillingness  to  confine  myself 
to  merely  friendly  relations  with  you.  I  have  always 
wanted  to  go  further  and  deeper  than  that ;  but  I  set  about 
it  clumsily;  I  irritated  and  upset  you,  and  when  I  saw  my 
mistake,  I  drew  back,  too  hastily  perhaps ;  and  that  was 
the  cause  of  this  "gulf"  between  us. 

But  this  awkwardness  is  a  mere  physical  sensation,  noth- 
ing more;  and  if  when  we  meet  again  you  see  the  old  "mis- 
chievous look  in  my  eyes,"  believe  me,  the  reason  of  it  will 

3  Polonski,  the  poet.    See  Chapter  XIX,  p.  223. 

216 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

not  be  that  I  am  a  bad  man=  I  assure  you  that  there  is 
no  need  to  look  for  any  other  explanation.  Perhaps  I  may 
add  also,  that  I  am  much  older  than  you,  and  have  traveled 
a  different  road.  .  .  ,  Outside  of  our  special,  so-called  "lit- 
erary" interests,  I  am  convinced,  we  have  few  points  of 
contact.  Your  whole  being  stretches  out  its  hands  towards 
the  future;  mine  is  built  upon  the  past.  For  me  to  follow 
you  is  impossible.  For  you  to  follow  me  is  equally  out  of 
the  question.  You  are  too  far  removed  from  me,  and  be- 
sides, you  stand  too  firmly  on  your  own  legs  to  become  any 
man's  disciple.  I  can  assure  you  that  I  never  attributed  any 
malice  to  you,  never  suspected  you  of  any  literary  envy.  I 
have  often  thought,  if  you  will  excuse  the  expression,  that 
you  were  wanting  in  common  sense,  but  never  in  goodness. 
You  are  too  penetrating  not  to  know,  that  if  either  of  us 
has  cause  to  envy  the  other,  it  is  certainly  not  you  that  have 
cause  to  envy  me.  ,  .  . 

The  following  year  Turgenyef  wrote  a  letter  to  my 
father  which,  it  seems  to  me,  provides  the  key  to  the 
understanding  of  his  attitude  towards  him. 

You  write  that  you  are  very  glad  you  did  not  follow 
my  advice  and  become  a  pure  man  of  letters.  I  don't  deny 
it;  perhaps  you  are  right;  still,  batter  my  poor  brains  as  I 
may,  I  cannot  imagine  what  else  you  are  if  you  are  not  a 
man  of  letters:  a  soldier?  a  squire?  a  philosopher?  the 
founder  of  a  new  religious  sect?  a  civil  servant?  a  man 
of  business  ?  .  ,  .  Please  help  me  out  of  my  difficulties  and 
tell  me  which  of  these  suppositions  Is  correct.  I  am  joking, 
but  I  really  do  wish  beyond  all  things  to  see  you  under 
weigh  at  last  with  all  sails  set.  o  .  . 


217 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

It  seems  to  me  that  Turgenyef,  as  an  artist,  saw 
nothing  in  my  father  beyond  his  great  literary  talent, 
and  was  unwilling  to  allow  him  the  right  to  be  any- 
thing besides  an  artist  and  a  writer.  Any  other  line 
of  activity  on  his  part  offended  Turgenyef,  as  it  were,, 
and  he  was  angry  with  my  father  because  he  did  not 
follow  his  advice.  He  was  much  older  than  my 
father,*  he  did  not  hesitate  to  rank  his  own  talent 
lower  than  my  father's,  and  demanded  only  one  thing 
of  him,  that  he  should  devote  all  the  energies  of  his 
life  to  his  literary  work.  And  lo  and  behold,  my 
father  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  magnanim- 
ity and  humility,  he  would  not  listen  to  his  advice, 
but  insisted  on  going  the  road  which  his  own  tastes 
and  nature  pointed  out  to  him.  Turgenyef's  tastes 
and  character  were  diametrically  opposed  to  my 
father's.  While  opposition  alwaj^s  inspired  my 
father  and  lent  him  strength,  it  had  just  the  opposite 
effect  on  Turgenyef. 

Being  wholly  in  agreement  with  my  sister's  views, 
I  will  merely  supplement  them  with  the  words  uttered 
by  my  father's  brother  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch,  who 
said:  "Turgenyef  cannot  reconcile  himself  to  the 
idea  that  Lyovotchka  is  growing  up  and  freeing  him.- 
self  from  his  tutelage." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  Turgenyef  was  alread}'- 

*  Turgenyef  was  ten  years  older  than  Tolstoy. 

218 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

a  famous  writer  no  one  had  ever  heard  of  Tolstoy, 
and,  as  Fet  expressed  it,  there  was  only  "some  men- 
tion of  his  stories  of  childhood." 

I  can  imagine  with  what  secret  veneration  a  young 
writer,  just  beginning,  like  my  father,  must  have 
regarded  Turgenyef  at  that  time.  All  the  more, 
because  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  was  a  great  friend  of  his 
beloved  eldest  brother,  Nikolai. 

I  do  not  like  to  assert  it  positively,  but  it  seems  to 
me,  that  just  as  Turgenyef  was  unwilling  to  confine 
himself  to  "merely  friendly  relations,"  so  my  father 
also  felt  too  warmly  towards  Ivan  Sergeyevitch,  and 
that  was  the  very  reason  why  they  could  never  meet 
without  disagreeing  and  quarreling.  In  confirma- 
tion of  what  I  say  here  is  a  passage  from  a  letter 
written  by  V.  Botkin,  a  close  friend  of  my  father's 
and  of  Ivan  Sergeyevitch's,  to  A.  A.  Fet,  immediately 
after  the  quarrel. 

I  think  that  Tolstoy  really  has  a  passionately  affectionate 
nature  and  he  would  like  to  love  Turgenyef  warmly,  but 
unfortunately  his  impulsive  feeling  encounters  nothing  but 
a  kindly,  good-natured  indifference,  and  he  can  by  no  means 
reconcile  himself  to  that. 

Turgenyef  himself  said  that  when  they  first  came 
to  know  each  other  my  father  dogged  his  heels  "like 
a  woman  in  love,"  and  at  one  time  he  used  to  avoid 
him,  because  he  was  afraid  of  his  spirit  of  opposition. 

219 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

My  father  was  perhaps  irritated  by  the  slightly  pat- 
ronizing tone  which  Turgenyef  adopted  from  the 
very  outset  of  their  acquaintance ;  and  Turgenyef  was 
irritated  by  my  father's  "crankiness,"  which  dis- 
tracted him  from  "his  proper  metier^  literature." 

In  i860,  before  the  date  of  the  quarrel,  Turgenyef 
writes  to  Fet:  "Lyof  Tolstoy  continues  to  play  the 
crank.  It  was  evidently  written  in  his  stars.  When 
will  he  turn  his  final  somersault  and  stand  on  his 
feet  at  last*?"  Turgenyef  felt  just  the  same  about 
my  father's  "Confession,"  which  he  read  not  long 
before  his  death.  Having  promised  to  read  it,  "to 
try  to  understand  it"  and  "not  to  lose  my  temper,"  he 
"started  to  write  a  long  letter  in  answer  to  the  'Con- 
fession,* but  never  finished  it  .  .  .  for  fear  of  be- 
coming contentious."  In  a  letter  to  D.  V.  Grigoro- 
vitch  he  called  the  book,  which  was  based,  in  his 
opinion,  on  false  premises,  "a  denial  of  all  live 
human  life"  and  "a  new  sort  of  Nihilism."  ^ 

It  is  evident  that  even  then  Turgenyef  did  not  un- 
derstand what  a  mastery  my  father's  new  philosophy 
of  life  had  obtained  over  him,  and  he  was  inclined 
to  attribute  this  enthusiasm  along  with  the  rest  to  the 
same  continual  "crankinesses"  and  "somersaults,"  to 
which  he  had  formerly  attributed  his  interest  in 

5  "A  Nihilist  is  a  man  who  does  not  bow  to  any  kind  of  author- 
ity, who  does  not  accept  any  principle  on  trust,  with  however  much 
reverence  that  principle  may  be  invested." — Turgenyef's  "Fathers 
and  Sons." 

220 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

school -mastering,  agriculture,  the  publication  of  a 
paper "  and  so  forth. 


Ivan  Sergeyevitch  visited  Yasnaya  Polyana, 
vv^ithin  my  memory,  three  times,  namely  in  August 
and  September  in  1878,  and  the  third  and  last  time  at 
the  beginning  of  May  in  1880.  I  can  remember  all 
these  visits,  although  it  is  quite  possible  that  some 
details  have  escaped  me. 

I  remember  that  when  we  expected  Turgenyef  on 
his  first  visit,  it  was  a  great  event  and  the  most 
anxious  and  excited  of  all  the  household  was  my 
mother.  She  told  us  that  my  father  had  quar- 
reled with  Turgenyef  and  had  once  challenged  him 
to  a  duel ;  and  that  he  was  now  coming  at  my  father's 
invitation  to  eifect  a  reconciliation. 

Turgenyef  spent  all  the  time  sitting  with  my 
father,  who  during  his  visit  even  put  aside  his  work, 
and  once,  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  my  mother  col- 
lected us  all,  at  a  quite  unusual  hour,  in  the  drawing- 
room,  where  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  read  us  his  story  of 
"The  Dog."  I  can  remember  his  tall  stalwart  figure, 
his  gray,  silky,  yellowish  hair,  his  soft  tread  and 

^  Namely  the  Yasnaya  Polyana,  published  from  Tolstoy's  own 
house,  on  education,  in  1861  and  1862.  Tolstoy  had  opened  several 
schools  in  the  neighborhood  by  that  time,  and  the  teachers  in  them 
contributed  to  the  paper.  Tolstoy's  own  contributions  are  to  be 
found  in  the  collections  of  his  works,  and  in  separate  editions, 
under  the  heading  of  "On  Popular  Education,"  etc. 

221 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

rather  waddling  walk,  and  his  piping  voice,  quite  out 
of  keeping  with  his  majestic  exterior.  He  had  a 
chuckling  kind  of  laugh,  like  a  child's,  and  when  he 
laughed  his  voice  was  more  piping  than  ever. 

In  the  evening,  after  dinner,  we  all  gathered  in  the 
zala.  At  that  time  Uncle  Seryozha,  my  father's 
brother,  Prince  Leonid  Dmitryevitch  Urusof,  Vice- 
Governor  of  the  Province  of  Tula,  Uncle  Sasha 
Behrs  and  his  young  wife,  the  handsome  Georgian 
Patty,  and  the  whale  family  of  the  Kuzmi'nskis,  were 
staying  at  Yasnaya. 

Aunt  Tanya  was  asked  to  sing.  We  listened  with 
beating  hearts  and  waited  to  hear  what  Turgenyef, 
the  famous  connoisseur,  would  say  about  her  sing- 
ing.    Of  course  he  praised  it, — sincerely,  I  think. 

After  the  singing  a  quadrille  was  got  up.  All  of 
a  sudden,  in  the  middle  of  the  quadrille,  Ivan 
Sergeyevitch,  who  was  sitting  at  one  side  looking  on, 
got  up  and  took  one  of  the  ladies  by  the  hand;  and, 
putting  his  thumbs  into  the  arm-holes  of  his  waist- 
coat, danced  a  cancan  according  to  the  latest  rules  of 
Parisian  art.  Every  one  roared  with  laughter, 
Turgenyef  more  than  anybody.'^ 

After  tea  the  "grown-ups"  started  some  conversa- 
tion, and  a  warm  dispute  arose  among  them.  It  was 
Prince  Urusof  who  disputed  most  warmly,  and  "went 

^  Mr.   Maude   quotes  Tolstoy's   diary,   which   relates  the   incident 
laconically:     "Turgenyef,   cancan:   it  is  sad." 

222 


c 
r 
'J 

H 


z 
c 


c 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

for"  Turgenyef,  This  was  the  time  when  my 
father's  "spiritual  birth,"  as  he  himself  called  the 
period,  was  just  beginning;  and  Prince  Urusof  was 
one  of  his  first  sincere  partizans  and  friends.  I  do 
not  remember  what  Prince  Urusof  was  arguing 
about;  but  he  was  sitting  at  the  table  opposite  Ivan 
Sergeyevitch,  making  sweeping  gestures  with  his  arm, 
when  suddenly  an  extraordinary  thing  happened :  his 
chair  slipped  away  from  under  him  and  he  fell  on 
the  floor  in  the  very  attitude  in  which  he  had  just 
been  sitting  on  his  chair,  with  his  arm  stretched  out 
and  his  forefinger  raised  menacingly  in  the  air.^ 

Quite  undisturbed  by  the  accident,  he  sat  calmly 
where  he  was,  still  gesticulating,  and  finished  the 
sentence  he  had  begun. 

Turgenyef  looked  him  up  and  down  and  burst 
out  laughing. 

"II  m'assomme^  this  Trubetskoy,"  he  piped 
through  his  laughter,  calling  the  Prince  by  the  wrong 
name»  Urusof  was  on  the  point  of  taking  offense, 
but  when  he  saw  that  everybody  else  was  laughing 
too,  he  got  up  and  joined  in  the  general  hilarity,, 

One  evening  we  sat  in  the  small  drawing-room  at 
the  round  table.  It  was  a  splendid  summer  night. 
Somebody,  I  think  it  was  my  mother,  proposed  that 
every  one  present  should  describe  the  happiest  mo- 
ment of  his  lifco 

s  This  is  the  gigantic  Warrior  described  in  Chap.  Vo 

225 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"You  begin,  Ivan  Sergeyevitch,"  she  said,  turning 
to  Turgenyef. 

"The  happiest  moment  of  my  life  was  when  I  first 
read  in  the  eyes  of  the  woman  I  loved  that  she  loved 
me  in  return,"  said  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  and  relapsed 
into  thought. 

"It 's  your  turn  now,  Sergei  Nikolayevitch,"  said 
Aunt  Tanya,  turning  to  Uncle  Seryozha. 

"I  '11  tell  you;  but  I  must  whisper  it  in  your  ear," 
answered  Uncle  Seryozha,  smiling  his  clever  sarcastic 
smile.     "The  happiest  moment  of  my  life"  .  .  . 

He  finished  the  rest  in  a  whisper,  right  into  Tat- 
yana  Andreyevna's  ear,  and  I  did  not  hear  what  he 
said.  I  only  saw  how  Aunt  Tanya  drew  back  from 
him  and  laughed. 

"Ay,  ay,  ay  I  You  're  always  saying  things  like 
that,  Sergei  Nikolayevitch.  You  're  an  impossible 
man!" 

"What  did  Sergei  Nikolayevitch  say*?"  asked  my 
mother,  who  never  understood  a  joke. 

"I  '11  tell  you  afterwards." 

And  that  ended  the  game. 

On  Turgenyef's  second  visit,  I  remember  the  wood- 
cock shooting.  This  was  on  the  2d  or  3d  of  May, 
1880.  We  all  went  out  together  beyond  the  Vor- 
onka,  my  father,  my  mother  and  all  the  children. 
My  father  gave  Turgenyef  the  best  place  and  posted 
himself  a  hundred  and  fifty  paces  away  at  the  other 

226 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

end  of  the  same  glade.  My  mother  stood  by  Tur- 
genyef,  and  we  children  lit  a  bonfire  not  far  off.  My 
father  fired  several  shots  and  brought  down  two 
birds;  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  had  no  luck  and  was  envy- 
ing my  father's  good  fortune  all  the  time.  At  last, 
when  it  was  beginning  to  get  dark,  a  woodcock  flew 
over  Turgenyef,  and  he  shot  it. 

"Killed  it?"  called  out  my  father  from  his  place. 

"Fell  like  a  stone;  send  your  dog  to  pick  him  up," 
answered  Ivan  Sergeyevitch. 

My  father  sent  us  with  the  dog,  Turgenyef  showed 
us  where  to  look  for  the  bird ;  but  search  as  we  might, 
and  the  dog  too,  there  was  no  woodcock  to  be  found. 
At  last  Turgenyef  came  to  help  us,  my  father  joined 
in  the  search;  but  still  there  was  no  woodcock  to 
be  found.  y 

"Perhaps  you  only  winged  it;  it  may  have  got 
away  along  the  ground,"  said  my  father,  puzzled. 
"It  is  impossible  that  the  dog  shouldn't  find  it;  he 
could  n't  miss  a  bird  that  was  killed." 

"I  tell  you  I  saw  it  with  my  own  eyes,  Lyof 
Nikolayevitch ;  it  fell  like  a  stone;  I  did  n't  wound  it, 
I  killed  it  outright;  I  can  tell  the  difference." 

"Then  why  can't  the  dog  find  it?  It 's  impos- 
sible; there  's  something  wrong." 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  that,"  insisted 
Turgenyef:  "you  may  take  it  from  me  I  'm  not  lying; 
it  fell  like  a  stone  I  tell  you." 

227 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

There  was  no  finding  the  woodcock,  and  the  inci- 
dent left  an  uncomfortable  atmosphere  behind  it,  as 
if  one  or  the  other  of  them  must  have  done  something 
wrong.  Either  Turgenyef  was  bragging  when  he 
said  that  he  shot  it  dead ;  or  my  father  was  wrong  in 
maintaining  that  the  dog  could  not  fail  to  find  a  bird 
that  had  been  killed.  And  this  must  needs  happen 
just  when  they  were  both  so  anxious  to  avoid  every 
sort  of  misunderstanding !  That  was  the  very  reason 
why  they  had  carefully  fought  shy  of  all  serious  con- 
versation and  spent  all  their  time  merely  amusing 
themselves.  .  .  . 

When  papa  said  good-night  to  us  that  evening,  he 
whispered  that  we  were  to  get  up  early  and  go 
back  to  the  place  to  have  a  good  hunt  for  the  bird. 
And  what  was  the  result?  The  woodcock,  in  fall- 
ing, had  caught  in  the  fork  of  a  branch,  right  at  the 
top  of  an  aspen-tree,  and  it  was  all  we  could  do  to 
knock  it  out  from  there.  When  we  brought  it  home 
in  triumph  it  was  quite  an  "occasion,"  and  my  father 
and  Turgenyef  were  far  more  delighted  than  we  were. 
It  turned  out  that  they  were  both  right,  and  every- 
thing ended  to  their  common  satisfaction. 

Ivan  Sergeyevitch  slept  downstairs,  in  my  father's 
study.  When  the  party  broke  up  for  the  night  I 
used  to  see  him  to  his  room  and  while  he  was  undress- 
ing, I  sat  on  his  bed  and  talked  sport  with  him.  He 
asked  me  if  I  could  shoot.     I  said  yes,  but  that  I 

228 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

did  n't  care  to  go  out  shooting  because  I  had  nothing 
but  a  rotten  old  one-barreled  gun. 

'T  '11  give  you  a  gun,"  he  said.  "I  've  got  two  in 
Paris,  and  I  have  no  earthly  need  for  both.  It 's 
not  an  expensive  gun,  but  it 's  quite  a  good  one. 
Next  time  I  come  to  Russia  I  '11  bring  it  with 
me." 

I  was  quite  taken  aback  and  thanked  him  heartily. 
I  was  tremendously  delighted  at  the  idea  that  I  was 
to  have  a  real  "central-fire"  gun. 

Unfortunately,  Turgenyef  never  came  to  Russia 
again.^  I  tried  afterwards  to  buy  the  gun  he  had 
spoken  of  from  his  legatees,  not  because  it  was  a  "cen- 
tral-fire" gun,  but  because  it  was  "Turgenyef's  gun" ; 
but  I  did  not  succeed. 

That  is  all  that  I  can  remember  about  this  delight- 
ful, naively-cordial  man,  with  the  childlike  eyes  and 
the  childlike  laugh,  and  in  the  picture  my  mind  pre- 
serves of  him  the  memory  of  his  grandeur  melts  into 
the  charm  of  his  good-nature  and  simplicity. 

In  1883  i^y  father  received  from  Ivan  Sergeye- 
vitch  his  last  farewell  letter,  written  in  pencil  on  his 
death-bed;  and  I  remember  with  what  emotion  he 
read  it.  When  the  news  of  his  death  came,  my 
father  could  talk  of  nothing  else  for  several  days,  and 

^  From  Yasna}  a  Polyana  Turgenyef  went  on  to  Moscow,  for  the 
opening  of  the  Pushkin  Memorial,  and  received  one  of  the  greatest 
ovations  ever  accorded  to  a  Russian  writer.  On  his  return  to  Paris 
he  developed  cancer  of  the  backbone  from  which  he  never  recovered. 

229 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

enquired  in  every  possible  quarter  for  details  of  his 
illness  and  last  days. 

Apropos  of  this  letter  of  Turgenyef's,  I  should  like 
to  say  that  my  father  was  sincerely  annoyed,  when 
he  heard  applied  to  himself  the  epithet  "great  writer 
of  the  land  of  Russia,"  ^'^  which  was  taken  from  it. 

He  always  hated  cliches,  and  he  regarded  this 
one  as  quite  absurd. 

"Why  'writer  of  the  land'?  I  never  knew  be- 
fore that  a  man  could  be  the  writer  of  a  land. 
People  get  attached  to  some  nonsensical  expression 
and  go  on  repeating  it  in  season  and  out  of  season." 

I  have  given  extracts  above  from  Turgenyef's  let- 
ters, which  show  the  invariable  consistency  with 
which  he  applauded  my  father's  literary  talents. 
Unfortunately  I  cannot  say  the  same  of  my  father's 
opinion  of  Turgenyef.  In  this  again  the  want  of 
dispassionateness  in  his  nature  revealed  itself.  Per- 
sonal relations  prevented  him  from  being  objective 
and  impartiaL 

In  1867,  apropos  of  Turgenyef's  "Smoke"  which 
had  just  appeared,  he  wrote  to  Fet:  "There  is 
hardly  any  love  of  anything  in  'Smoke'  and  hardly 
any  poetry.  The  only  thing  for  which  it  shows  any 
love  is  light  and  playful  adultery,  and  for  that  rea- 
son the  poetry  of  the  story  is  repulsive.  »  <>  .  I  am 
timid  in  expressing  this  opinion,  because  I  cannot 

10  Turgenyef 's  own  wcrds  were  "of  the  Russian  land." — I.  T. 

230 


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O 
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J 

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>.  U 

t— (  ^ 

■c  ^ 

o  — * 

■^  -5 

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ns  .5? 


CO 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

form  a  sober  judgment  about  an  author  whose  per- 
sonality I  dislike." 

In  1865,  before  the  final  breach  with  Turgenyef, 
he  writes,  also  to  Fet:  "I  do  not  like  'Enough/  A 
personal,  subjective  treatment  is  never  good  unless 
it  is  full  of  life  and  passion;  but  the  subjectivity  in 
this  case  is  full  of  lifeless  suffering."  ^^ 

In  the  autumn  of  1883,  after  Turgenyef 's  death/^ 
when  the  family  had  gone  into  Moscow  for  the  win- 
ter, my  father  stayed  at  Yasnaya  Polyana  alone  with 
Agafya  Mikhailovna,  and  set  earnestly  about  read- 
ing all  Turgenyef's  works. 

This  is  what  he  wrote  to  my  mother  at  the  time. 

"I  am  always  thinking  about  Turgenyef:  I  am 
intensely  fond  of  him,  and  sorry  for  him  and  do  noth- 
ing but  read  him,  I  live  entirely  with  him.  I  shall 
certainly  give  a  lecture  on  him,  or  write  it  and  have  it 
read;  tell  Yuryef.^^ 

"I  have  just  been  reading  Turgenyef's  'Enough.' 
Read  it;  it  is  perfectly  charming." 

Unfortunately,  my  father's  intended  lecture  on 
Turgenyef  never  came  off.  The  Government,  in  the 
person  of  the  Minister  Count  D.  A.  Tolstoy, ^^  for- 

11  "Enough,  the  diary  of  a  dead  artist,"  1864,  is  a  short  story, 
a  record  of  the  disillusionment  of  an  artist  before  he  commits 
suicide. 

12  He  died  in  August,  1883. 

13  Editor  of  Russkaya  Mysl. — I.  T.  Russian  Thought,  a  Moscow- 
monthly, 

i*D.   Ao   Tolstoy,    the    most    distant   relation,   or   none,   of   Lyof 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

bade  him  to  pay  this  last  tribute  to  his  dead  friend, 
with  whom  he  had  quarreled  all  his  life  only  because 
he  could  not  be  indifferent  to  him. 

Nikolayevitch,  was  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Procurator  of  the  Holy 
Synod  and  President  of  the  Academy  of  Science.  In  the  first  ca- 
pacity he  represented  the  new  regime  of  Alexander  III  by  curbing 
the  liberty  of  the  press.     He  died  in  harness  in  1889. 


234 


CHAPTER  XV 

GARSHIN 

MY  reminiscences  of  Vsevolod  Mikhailovitch 
Garshin  all  date  from  my  childhood,  and 
they  are,  in  consequence,  scanty  and  frag- 
mentary. 

He  visited  Yasnaya  Polyana  in  the  early  spring 
of  1880.  I  have  since  learnt  from  his  biography 
that  this  same  spring  he  left  the  Province  of  Tula  for 
Kharkof  and  was  there  put  in  a  lunatic  asylum. 
This  explains  certain  oddities  in  the  behavior  of  this 
modest  and  charming  gentleman,  certain  peculiarities 
which  startled  us,  and  thanks  to  which  I  remember 
him  so  well  as  I  do  on  his  first  visit  to  Yasnaya 
Polyana.  It  never  occurred  to  any  of  us  at  the  time 
that  we  had  to  do  with  a  sick  man,  unhinged  by  the 
approach  of  his  malady  and  consequently  not  quite 
normal.  We  attributed  his  oddities  to  mere  eccen- 
tricity. He  was  not  the  first  eccentric  visitor  we  had 
had  at  Yasnaya  by  a  long  way  I 

It  was  between  five  and  six  in  the  evening.  We 
were  sitting  round  the  big  table  in  the  zala  just  finish- 
ing dinner,  when  the  footman,  Sergei  Petrovitch,  as 

235 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

he  handed  round  the  last  dish,  told  my  father  that 
there  was  a  "man"  downstairs  who  wanted  to  see  him. 

"What  does  he  want*?"  asked  my  father. 

"He  did  n't  say;  he  says  he  wants  to  see  you/' 

"All  right;  I'll  be  down  in  a  minute." 

Without  finishing  his  pudding,  my  father  got  up 
from  the  table  and  went  downstairs.  We  children 
jumped  up  too  and  ran  after  him. 

In  the  hall  stood  a  young  man  poorly  dressed  and 
with  his  overcoat  on.  My  father  said  "How-do- 
you-do,"  and  asked  him  what  he  wanted. 

"The  first  thing  I  want  is  a  glass  of  vodka  and  the 
tail  of  a  herring,"  said  the  man,  looking  into  my 
father's  eyes  with  a  bold  bright  expression  in  his  own 
and  a  childish  smile.  Quite  unprepared  for  any  such 
answer  my  father  was  considerably  taken  aback  for  a 
moment.  The  reply  seemed  so  extraordinary,  com- 
ing from  an  apparently  sober,  well-mannered,  edu- 
cated man.     What  sort  of  queer  fish  was  this*? 

My  father  looked  at  him  again  with  that  profound 
and  piercing  glance  of  his,  met  his  eyes  once  more  and 
broke  into  a  broad  smile. 

Garshin  smiled  back,  like  a  child  which  has  just 
tried  to  be  funny  and  looks  into  its  mother's  eyes  to 
see  if  its  little  joke  is  well  received.  And  it  was  well 
received.  Or  rather,  it  was  not  the  joke  that  found 
favor,  but  the  child's  eyes,  at  once  so  luminous  and 
so  deep. 

236 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

There  was  so  much  frankness,  so  much  spirituality 
in  this  man's  gaze,  and  at  the  same  time  so  much  pure 
childish  good-humor,  that  when  one  met  him  it  was 
impossible  not  to  feel  an  interest  in  him  and  take  him 
to  one's  heart. 

Evidently  that  was  what  Lyof  Nikolayevitch  felt 
too. 

Telling  Sergei  to  bring  some  vodka  and  some  sort 
of  zakuska  he  opened  the  study-door  and  asked  Gar- 
shin  to  take  off  his  overcoat  and  come  in. 

"You  must  be  frozen !"  he  said  kindly,  examining 
his  visitor  with  an  attentive  air. 

"I  don't  know;  I  dare  say  I  am  a  bit;  I  've  been 
traveling  a  long  time." 

After  a  glass  of  vodka  and  a  zakuska,  Garshin  told 
my  father  his  name  and  said  that  he  "wrote  a  bit." 

"And  what  have  you  written?" 

"  'Four  Days.'  It 's  a  story  that  they  published 
in  the  Otctchestvennya  Zaphk'i}  You  probably 
have  n't  heard  of  it." 

"Why  of  course,  I  remember  it  well.  So  it  was 
you  who  wrote  that'?  A  capital  story!  Heard  of 
it?  I  paid  it  very  particular  attention.  So  you 
were  in  the  war?" 

1  The  Fatherland  Record,  a  monthly  magazine  and  review,  pub- 
lished in  St.  Petersburg.  The  story  "Four  Days  on  the  Battlefield," 
describing  the  experiences  of  a  soldier  wounded  in  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War,  is  very  well  known  and  has  been  translated  into 
English. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Yes,  I  was  through  the  whole  campaign^"  ^ 

"What  a  lot  of  interesting  things  you  must  have 
seen!  Come,  tell  us  all  about  it;  this  is  very  inter- 
esting." 

And  my  father  questioned  Garshin  systematically 
and  at  length  about  his  experiences.  He  sat  beside 
him  on  the  leather  sofa,  and  we  children  ranged  our- 
selves in  a  semicircle  about  them. 

Unfortunately  I  do  not  remember  this  conversa- 
tion in  detail  and  I  cannot  undertake  to  record  it.  I 
only  remember  that  it  was  extremely  interesting. 
The  man  who  so  startled  us  in  the  hall  had  ceased 
to  exist  by  now.  Before  us  sat  an  intelligent  and 
charming  companion,  giving  us  a  vivid  and  faithful 
picture  of  all  the  horrors  of  war  that  he  had  been 
through,  and  his  account  was  so  fascinating  that  we 
spent  the  whole  evening  there  beside  him,  devouring 
him  with  our  eyes  and  listening  attentively  to  all  that 
he  said. 

Recalling  that  evening  now,  when  I  know  that  at 
that  time  poor  Vsevolod  Mikhailovitch  was  on  the 
eve  of  a  serious  mental  breakdown,  and  searching  m.y 
impressions  of  him  for  signs  of  the  approach  of  it, 
I  can  only  say  that,  if  he  showed  tokens  of  any  ab- 
normality then,  they  consisted  only  in  his  talking 

2  Garshin  threw  up  his  University  career  to  volunteer  as  a  pri- 
vate for  the  war.  He  greatly  distinguished  himself  by  his  courage, 
was  wounded,  and  was  mentioned  in  despatches. 

238 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

too  much  and  too  interestingly.  With  wide-open, 
brightly  glowing  eyes,  he  spread  picture  after  picture 
before  us,  and  the  more  he  talked,  the  more  pic- 
turesque and  expressive  grew  his  language.  When 
he  paused  from  time  to  time,  the  expression  of  his 
countenance  changed,  and  the  same  gentle,  charming 
child  looked  out  at  us  as  before. 

I  do  not  remember  whether  he  spent  the  night  at 
Yasnaya,  or  whether  he  went  away  the  same  day. 

A  few  days  later  he  came  again,  this  time  mounted 
on  a  horse  with  no  saddle.  We  saw  him  from  the 
window,  riding  down  the  avenue.  He  was  talking 
to  himself  and  waving  his  arms  with  large  strange 
gestures.  When  he  reached  the  house  he  got  off  his 
horse,  held  it  by  the  reins,  and  asked  us  for  a  map 
of  Russia.  Some  one  asked  him  what  he  wanted 
it  for. 

'T  want  to  see  which  Is  the  way  to  Kharkof.  I  am 
going  to  Kharkof  to  see  my  mother." 

"On  horseback?' 

"On  horseback.     Why  not*?" 

We  got  him  an  atlas,  and  helped  him  to  look  out 
Kharkof;  he  made  a  note  of  the  towns  he  would  have 
to  pass  on  the  way,  said  good-by,  and  left  us.  We 
heard  afterwards  that  he  had  somehow  contrived  to 
purloin  the  horse  he  came  on  from  between  the  shafts 
of  a  cab  in  Tula.  The  cab-driver,  who  did  not 
realize  that  he  had  to  do  with  a  man  of  disordered 

239 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

mind,  spent  a  long  time  looking  for  his  horse  and  had 
the  greatest  difficulty  in  getting  it  back. 

After  this  Garshin  disappeared.  How  he  got  to 
Kharkof,  and  how  he  came  to  be  put  in  the  asylum, 
I  do  not  knowc 

A  few  years  later  two  little  booklets  of  his  stories 
were  published.^  I  read  them  when  I  was  grown  up 
and  there  is  no  need  for  me  to  say  what  a  deep  impres- 
sion they  made  on  me.  Could  they  have  been  writ- 
ten by  that  man  with  the  wonderful  eyes,  who  sat 
on  the  leather  sofa  in  the  study  that  night,  and  told 
us  all  those  interesting  stories?  Yes,  yes;  of  course 
it  was  the  same  man,  and  I  recognized  him  in  the 
two  books.  But  now  the  passing  childish  interest  in 
a  stranger  who  had  chanced  to  cross  my  path,  was 
transformed  into  deep  affection  for  the  man  and  the 
artist  and  I  am  glad  that  I  can  still  recall  even  these 
sad  and  fragmentary  memories  of  him. 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  see  Garshin  once  more,  at 
our  house  in  Moscow.  This  was  about  a  year  before 
his  death.  I  think  my  father  was  out  at  the  time 
and  it  was  my  mother  who  received  him.  He  was 
gloomy  and  silent  and  did  not  stay  long.  I  remem- 
ber my  mother  asking  him  why  he  wrote  so  little. 

"How  can  I  write  when  I  am  busy  all  day  at  my 
work,  which  stupefies  me  and  makes  my  head  ache'?" 

3  One  of  these  "booklets"  was  "The  Red  Flower,"  the  tale  of  a 
lunatic,  his  sufferings  and  his  hallucinations,  the  fruit  of  Garshin's 
own  experiencco 

240 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

he    answered    bitterly    and    fell    into    a    reverie/ 

My  mother  questioned  him  about  his  home  life "''' 
and  was  very  kindly  and  sympathetic  with  him. 

I  was  struck  once  more  by  his  big,  handsome  eyes, 
deeply  shaded  by  long  eyelashes,  and  I  involuntarily 
compared  them  with  his  eyes  as  I  had  seen  them  be- 
fore. They  were  just  the  same;  but  the  first  time 
they  had  been  alive  with  energy  and  courage,  and 
now  they  were  sad  and  pensive.  Life  had  robbed 
them  of  their  brilliance  and  drawn  a  film  of  sorrow 
over  them.  This  sorrow  revealed  itself  in  all  his 
being.  One  wanted  to  talk  softly  and  tenderly  with 
him,  to  take  him  to  one's  bosom,  as  it  were,  and  caress 
him.  When  I  heard  of  his  death  I  was  not  surprised^ 
Such  men  do  not  live  long. 

Answering,  according  to  my  own  impression,  the 
question  which  my  mother  put  to  him,  why  he  wrote 
so  little,  I  should  be  inclined  to  apply  to  him  what 
Turgenyef  said  of  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  Tolstoy, 
my  father's  brother: 

"He  wrote  little  because  he  had  all  the  good  quali- 
ties but  none  of  the  failings  which  a  man  needs  to  be 
a  great  writer." 

•*  Garshin  had  some  light  employment  as  Secretary  to  a  Railway 
Committee,  something  after  the  manner  of  that  "Joint  Board  of  the 
Associated  Clearing-Houses  of  the  Southwestern  Railway  System" 
that  Tolstoy  makes  fun  of  in  "Anna  Karenina."  He  killed  himself 
in  i888,  at  the  age  of  33,  in  a  fit  of  melancholia,  a  malady  to  which 
he  was  always  subject  in  the  spring. 

•'''  He  had  lately  married  a  lady-doctor. 

241 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  FIRST  "dark  PEOPLE."       THE  ASSASSINATION  OF 
ALEXANDER    II.       THE    SPY. 

THE  revolutionary  movement  in  Russia,  which 
led  to  the  ist  of  March,  1881,^  hardly 
affected  Yasnaya  Polyana,  and  we  knew  of 
it  only  from  newspaper  accounts  of  various  at- 
tempts at  assassination,  which  were  repeated  almost 
every  year  at  that  period. 

My  father  was  visited  from  time  to  time  by  certain 
"dark  people,"  -  whom  he  received  in  his  study,  and 
with  whom  he  always  argued  warmly.  As  a  rule 
these  unkempt  and  unwashed  visitors  appeared  no 
more  than  once,  and  then,  meeting  with  no  encour- 
agement from  my  father,  disappeared  forever.  The 
only  ones  who  came  back  were  those  who  were  inter- 
ested in  hearing  of  my  father's  Christian  ideas  for  the 
first  time,  and  from  my  childhood  onwards  I  can 
remember  certain  "Nihilists,"  who  often  turned  up 

1  March  13th,  new  style:  the  date  of  the  assassination  of  Alex- 
ander 11. 

2  That  is,  proletarians.  The  author  uses  the  word  here  in  ref- 
erence to  educated  people,  who  for  political  purposes,  or  on  prin- 
ciple, had  "gone  into  the  people"  and  become  peasants  or  tramps. 

242 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

again  at  Yiisnaya  and  under  my  father's  influence 
gave  up  terrorism  altogether. 

"The  Revolutionary  and  the  Christian,"  said  my 
father,  "stand  at  the  two  extreme  points  of  an  un- 
completed circle.  Their  nearness  is  therefore  illu- 
sory: in  reality  there  are  no  two  points  further  re- 
moved from  each  other.  If  they  are  to  come 
together  they  must  turn  right  back  and  traverse  the 
whole  circumference." 

•  •••oooo 

This  is  how  the  news  of  the  assassination  of  Alex- 
ander II  reached  us. 

On  the  first  of  March  my  father  had  gone  out,  ac- 
cording to  custom,  for  a  walk  on  the  main  road  before 
dinnen  A  thaw  had  set  in  after  a  snowy  winten 
Deep  thaw-holes  had  formed  in  the  snow  on  the 
roads,  and  the  hollows  were  full  of  water.  Owing 
to  the  bad  conditions  of  the  roads  we  had  given 
up  sending  into  Tula  and  there  were  no  news- 
papers. 

On  the  main  road  he  met  a  wandering  Italian 
organ-grinder,  with  his  barrel-organ  and  fortune- 
telling  birds.  He  was  traveling  on  foot  from  Tula. 
They  got  into  conversation. 

"Where  do  you  come  from"?  Where  are  )^ou  go- 
ing to?' 

"Me  from  Tula.  Business  bad,  very  bad:  me  get 
no  eat,  birds  get  no  eat,  Tsar  get  killed." 

243 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Tsar?   What  Tsar?   Who  killed  him?   When?" 

"Russian  Tsar,  Petersburg,  throwed  a  bomb,  seed 
a  paper." 

When  he  got  home  my  father  at  once  told  us  of 
Alexander  IPs  assassination,  and  the  papers  which 
arrived  the  next  day  confirmed  the  news. 

I  remember  the  overwhelming  impression  which 
this  senseless  murder  produced  on  my  father.  Be- 
sides his  horror  at  the  cruel  death  of  the  Tsar,  "who 
has  done  so  much  good  to  people  and  always  wished 
them  so  much  good,  that  good  old  man,"  he  could  not 
help  thinking  of  the  murderers,  of  the  approaching 
executions,  and  "not  so  much  about  them  as  about 
those  who  were  preparing  to  take  part  in  their  mur- 
der, and  especially  about  Alexander  III." 

For  some  days  he  went  about  wrapped  in  gloomy 
meditation,  and  at  last  bethought  him  to  write  a  let- 
ter to  the  new  Emperor,  Alexander  III. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  the  style  in 
which  the  letter  was  to  be  written,  whether  he  was  to 
use  the  method  of  address  required  by  etiquette,  or 
the  method  employed  among  ordinary  mortals; 
whether  he  was  to  write  it  with  his  own  hand  or  have 
it  copied  by  Alexander  Petrovitch  Ivanof  who  was 
staying  with  us  at  the  time.  Good  paper  was  sent 
for  from  Tula,  the  letter  was  altered  and  corrected 
and  copied  out  fair  again  several  times,  and  at  last 
my  father  posted  it  off  to  St.  Petersburg  to  N.  N. 

244 


rs  ■'  tnr'^'r'  Jii'"'  •'  .■'   .  •:""■;*;';; 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Strakhof,  asking  him  to  send  it  on  to  the  Emperor 
through  K.  N.  Pobyedonostsef. 

How  firmly  he  beheved  then  in  the  power  of  his 
own  conviction  ovi.  r  others  I  How  he  hoped  that  the 
criminals  would  be,  not  forgiven — he  had  no  hope  of 
that — ^but  at  any  rate  not  executed  I  He  devoured 
the  newspapers  eagerly  and  lived  in  hope  and  expect- 
ancy until  he  read  that  all  the  participators  in  the 
crime  had  been  hanged.  Pobyedonostsef  had  not 
even  handed  on  the  letter;  he  sent  it  back,  because, 
as  he  said  in  a  letter  to  my  father,  he  was  prevented 
"by  his  religion"  from  discharging  such  a  commission. 

The  letter  afterwards  came  to  the  Emperor's  hands 
through  a  friend.  When  he  read  it,  Alexander  III  is 
reported  to  have  said:  "If  the  crime  had  concerned 
myself  I  should  have  had  the  right  to  pardon  them, 
but  I  could  not  pardon  them  on  my  father's  behalf." 

I  remember  that  not  only  my  father  but  we  chil- 
dren too  were  horrified  by  this  execution  of  several 
people,  and  a  woman  among  them.  At  that  time 
the  death  penalty  was  an  exceptional  event  to  which 
people  were  not  yet  accustomed.^  It  was  not  like 
nowadays. 

oooooooe 

As  the  years  passed  the  number  of  "dark  people" 
who  visited  Yasna5^a  Polyana  began  gradually  to 

3  The  punishment  for  murder  in  Russia  is  penal  servitude.  The 
death  penahy  is  inflicted  only  by  court-martial  or  by  the  civil 
courts  under  special  powers  from  the  Crown. 

247 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

increase.  In  the  end  there  were  hardly  any  revolu- 
tionaries among  them;  the  majority  of  them  were 
either  people  of  the  same  way  of  thinking  as  my 
father,  or  people  in  search  of  truth,  who  came  to  him 
for  advice  and  moral  support. 

What  a  number  of  such  folk  came  and  went  I  Of 
every  age  and  every  calling.  What  a  number  of  sin- 
cere and  deeply  convinced  people,  and  what  a  num- 
ber of  Pharisees  who  only  wanted  to  rub  shoulders 
with  the  name  of  Tolstoy  and  get  some  advantage  for 
themselves  out  of  it  I  What  a  number  of  cranks,  one 
might  almost  say,  of  maniacs ! 

For  instance  there  was  an  old  Swede  who  came  to 
Yasnaya  Folyana  and  stayed  a  considerable  time; 
he  went  about  bare-footed  and  half  naked  summer 
and  winter.  His  principle  was  "simplification"  and 
getting  near  to  Nature.  My  father  was  greatly  in- 
terested in  him  at  one  time,  but  it  ended  in  his  going 
too  far  in  the  matter  of  "simplification,"  losing  all 
sense  of  shame,  and  indeed,  of  decency,  and  having 
to  be  turned  out  of  the  house. 

Another  time  an  individual  turned  up  who  only 
fed  once  in  every  two  days.  The  day  he  arrived  at 
Yasnaya  was  his  day  for  not  eating.  The  whole  day 
from  morning  onwards  there  was  food  spread  on  the 
table,  breakfast,  tea,  coffee,  lunch,  dinner,  tea  again 
with  bread  and  butter  and  cakes;  but  he  sat  apart 
and  ate  nothing. 

248 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"I  ate  yesterday,"  he  answered*  modestly  when  he 
was  offered  anything. 

"What  do  you  eat  the  days  you  do  eat?"  he  was 
asked. 

It  appeared  that  he  ate  precisely  a  pound  of  bread, 
a  pound  of  vegetables  and  a  pound  of  fruit. 

"And  you're  not  so  very  thin!"  said  my  father, 
astonished. 

We  had  pretty  frequent  visits  from  a  tall  fair 
morphino-maniac  of  the  name  of  O.,  who  proved  the 
truth  of  Christianity  by  mathematical  formulae;  then 
there  was  the  short  dark  ne'er-do-well  P. ;  there  was 
the  converted  Jew  F.  who  lodged  and  worked  in  the 

village;  and  last  of  all  came  Zhenitchka  S n,  a 

spy  sent  down  by  the  secret  police.^ 

One  day  in  summer  as  we  were  playing  about  in  the 
garden  we  came  on  a  young  gentleman  sitting  in  a 
ditch  and  calmly  smoking  a  cigarette.  Our  dogs  ran 
at  him  and  barked.  We  secretly  egged  the  dogs  on 
and  ran  away  ourselves  in  the  opposite  direction. 

A  few  days  later  we  met  the  same  young  gentle- 
man on  the  road,  not  far  from  the  house.  When  he 
saw  us,  he  greeted  us  cheerfully  and  entered  into  con- 
versation. It  appeared  that  he  had  settled  in  lodg- 
ings in  the  village,  at  the  cottage  of  one  of  our  out- 

4  Literally,  by  the  "Third  Section,"  i.  e.,  of  the  Emperor's  Per- 
sonal Chancellery,  with  jurisdiction  over  the  gendarmerie,  political 
exile,  sectarians,  etc.;  abolished  in  1880. 

249 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

door  men,  and  was  en  vilUgiature  there  with  his  in- 
tended wife  Ada  and  her  mother. 

"Come  in  some  day  and  have  a  cup  of  tea,"  he 
said  to  me;  "I  'm  rather  bored.  We  '11  have  a  chat; 
I  '11  tell  you  all  about  myself.  And,  by  the  way,  you 
might  do  me  a  service.  I  'm  going  to  be  married  in 
a  few  days,  and  I  have  n't  a  best  man.  I  hope  you 
won't  refuse  to  do  me  that  pleasure." 

The  proposal  was  a  seductive  one  and  I  agreed  to 
it. 

In  a  few  days  Mr.  S n  had  made  himself  so 

charming  to  me  that  we  became  great  friends,  and  I 
visited  him  every  day  and  often  spent  hours  with 
him. 

The  day  of  the  wedding  I  got  leave  from  home  for 
the  whole  day,  put  on  a  clean  jacket  and  was  very 
proud  of  my  function  as  best  man.  When  we  got 
back  from  the  church,  I  dined  with  the  happy  pair 
and  we  drank  their  health  in  infused  vodka.^ 

When  my  mother  saw  how  pleased  I  was  with 
my  new  friend,  she  took  alarm  and  restrained  my 

devotion.     One  of  her  arguments  against  S n 

was  that  a  well-mannered  man  who  invited  a 
boy  to  his  house  w.as  bound  by  the  rules  of  polite- 
ness first  of  all  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  his  par- 
ents. 

5  Nalivka,  that  is,  vodka  infused  with  soaked  fruits,  like  cherry 
brandy. 

250 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"I  can't  let  my  son  visit  a  man  whom  I  don't  know 
at  all." 

I  told  S n,  and  he  called  on  my  mother  tlie 

same  day  and  apologized  for  not  having  come  before. 
After  this  he  came  to  know  my  father  and  paid  us 
frequent  visits.  Everybody  got  used  to  him  and 
treated  him  frankly  and  familiarly  as  a  friend  of  the 
family.  At  times  he  joined  my  father  in  his  out- 
door work  and  he  seemed  entirely  to  share  his  convic- 
tions. 

In  the  autumn,  when  he  was  leaving  Yasnaya 
Polyana,  he  called  on  my  father  and  made  a  clean 
breast  of  his  misdeeds.  He  confessed  that  he  was  a 
spfy,  sent  by  the  secret  police  to  keep  an  eye  on  my 
father  and  the  visitors  to  the  house. 

Another  man  who  appeared  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 
a  good  deal  later  and  played  the  same  part  as 
S n,  was  the  prison  chaplain  from  Tula  who  vis- 
ited us  periodically  to  have  religious  discussions  with 
my  father.  By  the  assumed  Liberalism  of  his  con- 
versation he  drew  my  father  out  to  be  explicit  about 
his  views,  and  pretended  to  be  deeply  interested  in 
them. 

"What  a  queer  man  he  is,"  said  my  father,  with 
some  astonishment,  "and  he  seems  to  be  sincere.  I 
asked  if  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  would  not  fall 
foul  of  him  for  coming  to  see  me  so  often;  but  he 
does  n't  care  a  continental  whether  they  do  or  don't. 

251 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

I  began  to  think  that  he  must  have  been  sent  to  spy 
on  me  and  told  him  what  I  suspected,  but  he  assures 
me  that  he  comes  quite  of  his  own  accord." 

When  my  father  was  excommunicated  it  was  this 
very  priest  that  the  Synod  cited  as  having  tried  in 
vain  to  "bring  him  to  a  right  way  of  thinking"  by 
their  orders. 

The  last  time  he  came  to  see  my  father  was  after 
his  excommunication,  during  one  of  his  illnesses. 
He  was  told  that  my  father  was  ill  and  could  not  see 
him.  This  was  in  the  summer.  The  priest  sat  down 
on  the  verandah  and  refused  to  go  until  he  had  seen 
Lyof  Nikolayevitch  personally.  An  hour  or  two 
passed,  and  still  he  remained  obstinately  seated  there, 
waiting.  He  had  to  be  spoken  to  extremely  sharply 
and  told  to  go.     After  that  I  never  saw  him  again. 


252 


AT   THE    POKROF    HOSPITAL 


TOLSTOY    AMONG   THE    PEASANT   CHILDREN 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  END  OF  THE  SEVENTIES.       THE  GREAT  CHANGE. 

THE    MAIN    ROAD. 

TRACING  my  reminiscences  forward  step  by- 
step,  I  have  imperceptibly  reached  the  eight- 
ies, and,  in  doing  so,  passed  on  to  the  time  of 
my  first  manhood.  In  real  life  the  transition  was 
still  more  imperceptible.  I  remember  that  I  did  not 
realize  it  until  it  was  already  an  accomplished  fact. 
I  regretted  my  lost  childhood  and  wept  bitterly. 

In  proportion  as  my  childhood  had  been  sunny  and 
cloudless,  my  early  manhood  was  dark  and  gloomy. 
Is  this  the  common  lot,  or  does  this  period  differ  with 
different  people?     I  do  not  know. 

I  believe  that  I  was  unconsciously  affected  by  my 
father's  doubts  and  distresses,  which  had  begun  in 
1876,  when  I  was  ten  years  old.  Like  every  child,  I 
was  interested  in  my  father's  and  mother's  private 
life  only  in  so  far  as  it  affected  me.  It  was  about 
this  time  that  my  father's  quest  for  a  religion  began. 
I  will  try,  as  well  as  I  can,  to  tell  all  that  has  stuck 
in  my  memory  from  that  period. 

Ever  since  I  could  remember,  our  family  had  been 
brought  up  on  traditional  lines,  according  to  purely 

^S5     . 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Orthodox  Russian  Church  ideas.  Every  evening 
before  we  went  to  bed  we  had  to  say  a  prayer  for 
papa,  mama,  our  brothers  and  sisters,  and  all  Ortho- 
dox Christians.  On  the  vigil  of  all  the  great  Church 
festivals  a  priest  used  to  come  to  our  house  and  hold 
vespers,  and  the  first  and  last  weeks  of  Lent  the 
whole  household  fasted.  It  was  my  mother  who 
directed  these  matters;  my  father  was  pretty  indif- 
ferent about  religion,  and  did  not  always  trouble  to 
come  to  the  zala  when  the  priest  was  there. 

So  it  was  in  our  early  childhood. 

After  that  my  father's  attitude  towards  the  Church 
began  to  change.  I  remember  that  short  period  of 
his  life  when  he  attended  mass  every  Sunday  and 
strictly  observed  all  the  fasts.  From  that  time  for- 
ward he  talked  more  and  more  often  about  religion. 
Whoever  visited  us  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  whether  it 
was  Ushakof,  the  Governor  of  the  Province  of  Tula, 
Count  Bobrinski  the  Radstockite,^  Strakhof,  Fet, 
Rayevski,  Pyotr  Fyodorovitch  Samarin,  or  Prince 

1  Count  Bobrinski  the  Radstockite.  The  late  Lord  Radstock  went 
to  Russia  in  1874  and  had  an  immense  success  as  an  Evangelical 
missionary  in  the  most  unlikely  of  all  missionary  fields,  the  fashion- 
able drawing-rooms  of  St.  Petersburg.  His  followers  are  generally 
known  in  Russia  as  Pashkovites,  after  Colonel  Pashkof,  his  chief 
supporter.  For  some  time  the  missionaries  carried  all  before  them, 
founded  a  Society  and  scattered  tracts  broadcast.  Then  the  Gov- 
ernment took  alarm,  and  the  propaganda  was  driven  from  the 
capital  into  the  country  districts.  Count  and  Countess  Bobrinski 
were  the  most  active  Pashkovlte  propagandists  in  the  Province  of 
Tula.    According   to    Mrs.   Edward   Trotter    ("Undertones   of   the 

256 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Umsof,  it  was  all  the  same:  the  conversation  was 
sure  to  come  round  to  religious  subjects,  and  endless 
discussions  arose,  in  which  my  father  was  often  quite 
harsh  and  disagreeable. 

As  my  father  grew  more  religious,  so  did  we.  In 
the  earlier  days  we  had  fasted  only  in  the  first  and 
last  weeks  of  Lent,  but  from  1877  we  took  to  observ- 
ing the  whole  of  all  the  fasts  and  zealously  attended 
all  the  church  services. 

In  the  summer  we  prepared  for  communion  during 
the  Assumption  Fast.^  I  remember  how  we  used 
to  be  taken  to  church  on  the  outside-car,  and  what 
an  exalted  religious  frame  of  mind  we  were  all  in: 
we  called  all  our  sins  to  mind,  and  solemnly  prepared 
for  confession.  It  was  a  rainy  summer  and  there 
was  a  great  crop  of  funguses.  Along  the  highroad 
on  the  way  to  church  there  was  an  extraordinary 
number  of  mushrooms  and  we  used  to  stop  on  the 
way  home  and  fill  our  hats  with  them. 

That  same  summer  Shtchegolenkof,  the  traveling 
minstrel,'*^   stayed   with   us   at   Yasnaya.     He   was 

19th  Century,"  1905)  Count  Bobrinski,  while  still  a  Minister  of 
State,  was  converted  by  a  casual  conversation  about  Lord  Radstock 
with  a  friend  and  went  through  a  momentary  experience  resembling 
that  of  St.  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus.  In  1884  Colonel  Pash- 
kof  was  turned  out  of  Russia,  and  the  overt  operations  of  the 
Society  were  put  an   end  to. 

2  August  1-15,  old  style,  in  honor  of  the  Virgin  Mary.     It  is  the 
next  strictest  fast  after  Lent. 

3  Reciter  or  chanter  of  bylinas  or  old  ballads  of  the  heroic  age, 
a  profession  frequently  followed  by  blind  beggars. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

called  by  his  patronymic  "Petrovitch,"  ^  He  re- 
cited ballads  something  in  the  same  style  as  the  blind 
minstrels,  but  there  was  none  of  that  offensive  snuffle 
in  his  voice  which  I  always  found  so  repulsive  in 
them.  The  chief  picture  I  have  of  him  in  my  mind 
is  sitting  on  the  stone  steps  of  the  verandah  outside 
my  father's  study.  When  he  recited,  I  used  to  enjoy 
sitting  and  gazing  at  his  gray  beard,  which  hung  in 
twisted  locks,  and  his  endless  stories  delighted  me. 
One  tasted  the  flavor  of  hoary  antiquity  in  them  and 
felt  the  sound  good  sense  of  the  people  encrusted  on 
them  in  the  passage  of  the  centuries.  My  father  lis- 
tened to  him  with  the  greatest  interest;  he  made  him 
recite  something  new  every  day  and  Petrovitch  was 
always  able  to  satisfy  his  demands.  He  was  inex- 
haustible. My  father  afterwards  borrowed  subjects 
from  his  stories  for  his  tales  for  the  people.^ 

At  this  distance  of  time  it  is  not  easy  for  me  to 
unravel  all  my  mental  experiences  of  that  date. 
I  only  remember  the  general  impression,  which 
amounted  to  feeling  that  my  father  had  somehow 
changed  and  something  was  happening  to  him.  That 
"something,"  which  was  beyond  the  comprehension 

*  By  courtesy,  distinguished  and  elderly  people  of  the  peasant 
class  are  addressed  not  by  their  Christian  or  surnames,  but  by  the 
middle  name,  formed  by  adding  -ovitch  or  -ovna  to  their  father's 
Christian   name. 

5  "What  Men  Live  By"  and  "The  Three  Old  Men."— I.  T. 

258 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  a  child,  expressed  itself  in  various  ways  and  went 
on  for  several  years,  until  about  1883.  ^  good  deal 
that  happened  then  became  clearer  to  me  at  a  later 
date,  but  at  the  time,  what  I  was  chiefly  sensible  of 
was  the  change  in  my  father's  disposition,  and  as  I 
had  no  notion  of  the  acute  moral  crisis  he  was  pass- 
ing through,  I  took  very  little  interest  in  its  real 
nature. 

In  the  spring  of  1878,  my  father  fasted  and  kept 
Lent  strictly,  and  in  the  summer  of  the  same  year 
he  visited  the  old  monk  Father  Ambrose  at  the  Opta 
Hermitage.  I  do  not  remember  what  he  told  us 
about  this  visit.  I  only  know  that  he  came  back 
greatly  dissatisfied  and  that  soon  afterwards  he  began 
to  criticize  the  rites  and  traditions  of  the  Church,  and 
finally  repudiated  them  altogether. 

At  the  same  time,  instead  of  going  out  riding  or 
bathing  or  shooting  or  coursing,  my  father  took  more 
and  more  to  going  for  walks  on  the  highroad,*^  where 
he  picked  up  with  all  manner  of  tramps  and  pilgrims 
with  whom  he  delighted  in  conversing.  This  high- 
road, which  runs  from  Moscow  to  Kief  passes  less 
than  a  mile  from  the  demesne  of  Yasnaya  Polyana. 
In  the  old  days,  before  the  railway,  this  was  the  only 
means  of  communication  between  the  north  and 
south  of  Russia.     The  old  post-boy  Pavel  Pentyakof 

6  The  chaussee,  the  cambered  stone-road,  as  opposed  to  the  ordi- 
nary flat  earthen  highways. 

259 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

was  still  alive  in  my  time,  and  I  can  remember  his 
telling  me  how  he  drove  the  Emperor  Alexander  II 
along  this  road. 

When  the  railway  was  built  the  highroad  lost  con- 
siderably in  importance,  so  far  as  vehicular  traffic 
was  concerned,  but  it  still  continued  to  be  the  favor- 
ite route  for  tramps,'^  and  especially  for  pilgrims, 
with  bast-wallets  on  their  shoulders  and  long  staffs 
in  their  hands,  on  their  way  to  Kief,  to  the  Trinity 
monastery,  to  the  shrine  of  the  Iberian  Virgin,  or  the 
other  holy  places  scattered  along  its  length.^ 

"I  'm  off  to  the  Nevsky  Prospect,"  my  father  used 
to  say  jokingly,  as  he  took  his  staff  and  started  out 
for  his  walk.  When  he  got  back  for  dinner,  he 
would  tell  us  all  about  the  interesting  people  he  had 
met,  and  his  note-books  of  that  date  are  full  of  vivid 
personal  descriptions,  sayings  and  proverbs,  and 
especially  of  .characteristic  expressions  of  popular 
wisdom. 

Not  having  found  satisfaction  in  the  religion  of 
the  Church,  my  father  set  himself  to  seek  for  God 

'^  The  English  word  "tramp"  has  not  the  same  association  as 
the  Russian  strann'ik,  the  wanderers  on  Russian  roads  not  being 
so  much  a  homeless  population,  drifting  from  the  towns,  as  old 
peasants  who  have  left  their  cottages  from  philosophical  or  reli- 
gious  conviction. 

^That  is,  to  visit  the  Catacombs  at  Kief;  the  shrine  of  the 
Iberian  Virgin  at  the  Resurrection  Gate  of  China-Town  in  Moscow ; 
and  that  city  of  churches  and  monasteries  known  as  the  Trinity- 
Sergius  Lavra,  some  40  miles  out  from  Moscow;  all  daily  thronged 
with  hosts  of  pilgrims. 

260 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

in  the  beliefs  of  the  common  people,  and  in  them  he 
found  the  key  which  afterwards  unlocked  the  door 
for  him  to  the  study  and  new  interpretation  of  the 
Gospel.  Once  he  had  set  out  on  this  path,  he  gave 
himself  up  entirely  to  his  new  search  and  made  a 
sudden  and  complete  breach  with  his  former  life. 

In  his  "Confession,"  he  says,  with  regard  to  this 
period  of  his  life :  "The  life  of  our  circle  of  society, 
the  rich,  the  learned,  not  only  repelled  me  but  lost 
all  meaning."  And  this  renunciation  of  everything 
that  had  made  our  life  what  it  was  up  to  that  time 
reacted  most  disagreeably  on  all  the  rest  of  us.  As 
a  boy  of  twelve,  I  felt  that  my  father  was  getting 
more  and  more  estranged  from  us,  and  that  our  inter- 
ests were  not  merely  indifferent  to  him,  but  actually 
alien  and  repulsive.  He  got  gloomy  and  irritable, 
often  quarreled  with  my  mother  about  trifles,  and 
from  our  former  jovial  and  high-spirited  ring-leader 
and  companion  was  transformed  before  our  eyes  into 
a  stem  and  censorious  propagandist.  His  harsh  de- 
nunciations of  the  aimless  life  of  gentlefolk,  of  their 
gluttony,  their  indolence,  and  spoliation  of  the  indus- 
trious working-classes,  grew  more  and  more  frequent. 

"Here  we  sit  in  our  well-heated  rooms,  and  this 
very  day  a  man  was  found  frozen  to  death  on  the 
highroad. 

"He  was  frozen  to  death  because  no  one  would 
give  him  a  night's  lodging. 

261 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"We  stuff  ourselves  with  cutlets  and  pastry  of 
every  sort,  while  in  Samara  the  people  are  dying 
by  thousands  with  swollen  stomachs  from  famine. 

"We  go  riding  and  driving  to  the  bathing-place, 
while  Prokofi's  last  gelding  lies  dead  and  he  has  no 
beast  to  plow  his  strips  with. 

"We  are  still  snoring  in  bed,  while  the  tailor  has 
had  time  to  walk  into  Tula  and  back  to  get  hooks  and 
eyes  for  our  fur  jackets." 

I  will  not  say  that  when  my  father  spoke  so  simply 
we  children  did  not  understand  what  he  said.  Of 
course  we  understood.  But  it  spoiled  our  selfish 
childish  happiness  and  broke  up  all  our  daily  life. 
When  we  were  getting  up  theatricals  at  Yasnaya  and 
the  two  Baroness  Mengdens  came,  and  Nunya  Novo- 
siltsef  and  the  Kislenskis,  and  we  were  all  enjoying 
ourselves  with  games  and  croquet  and  talking  about 
falling  in  love,  suddenly  my  father  would  come  in 
and  with  a  single  word  or,  even  worse,  with  a  single 
look,  would  spoil  the  whole  thing.  And  we  would 
feel  bored  and,  as  it  were,  rather  ashamed  at  times: 
"It  would  have  been  better  if  he  had  n't  come." 
And  the  worst  of  it  was  that  he  felt  this  himself. 
He  did  not  want  to  spoil  our  fun — for  after  all  he 
was  very  fond  of  us — but  nevertheless  he  did  spoil  it. 
He  said  nothing,  but  he  thought  something.  We 
all  knew  what  he  thought,  and  that  was  what  made 
us  so  uncomfortable. 

262 


» 
o 


'-3 

a 
> 

> 

H 

G 

r 
IS. 


2 


"9 

O 
r 

>- 

> 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Meanwhile  our  family  life  continued  to  flow  along 
its  accustomed  channels,  and  to  follow  the  lines  of  its 
normal  development.  We  still  had  the  same  Nikolai 
the  cook,  the  same  "Anke  Pie,"  transplanted  from 
the  Behrs  family  and  deeply  rooted  in  the  life  of 
Yasnaya  Polyana,  the  same  tutors  and  governesses, 
the  same  lessons,  the  same  succession  of  babies  that 
my  mother  nursed  at  her  breast;  all  the  founda- 
tions on  which  the  life  of  our  ant-heap  rested  were  as 
unshaken  as  ever  and  as  necessary  for  our  selfish 
enjoyment.  It  is  true  that  we  felt  an  irreconcilable 
division  in  our  lives,  we  felt  that  the  chief  thing 
had  somehow  gone  out  of  them,  because  my  father 
grew  more  and  more  remote  from  us ;  it  was  often  ex- 
tremely painful ;  but  we  could  not  alter  our  lives  as 
he  wished  us  to;  it  seemed  absolutely  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

The  conflict  of  ideas  with  traditions,  of  "life 
according  to  God"  with  "Anke  Pie"  resulted  as  such 
conflicts  in  human  life  always  do;  tradition  got  the 
better  of  it,  and  the  ideas  achieved  nothing  beyond 
spoiling  the  flavor  of  our  pie  with  their  bitterness. 
What  hope  was  there  of  reconciling  "life  according 
to  God,"  the  life  of  pilgrims  and  peasants,  in  which 
my  father  delighted,  with  those  infallible  principles 
which  had  been  instilled  into  us  from  our  cradle  up : 
with  the  invariable  duty  of  taking  soup  and  cutlets 
at  dinner,  of  talking  French  and  English,  of  prepar- 

265 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

ing  for  the  Gymnase  and  the  University,  of  learning 
one's  part  for  theatricals^  And  we  children  often 
felt  that  it  was  not  we  who  failed  to  understand  our 
father,  but  on  the  contrary,  it  was  he  who  had  ceased 
to  understand  us,  because  he  was  occupied  with  "some 
notions  of  his  own." 

These  "notions"  were  his  new  philosophy  and  the 
piles  of  books  which  grew  up  in  his  study.  He  got 
whole  mountains  of  religious  works  from  somewhere, 
lives  of  the  Saints,  Canons,  and  Homilies  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  spent  days  together,  shut 
up  in  his  study,  reading  them  and  meditating.  He 
would  come  out  to  dinner  gloomy  and  thoughtful, 
and  when  he  talked  it  was  always  about  these  "no- 
tions of  his  own,"  and  we  all  found  him  tiresome 
and  uninteresting. 

When  I  recall  this  period,  I  am  filled  with  horror 
at  the  thought  of  what  he  must  have  been  suffering 
mentally.  When  he  utterly  repudiated  everything 
he  had  delighted  in  before,  repudiated  that  patri- 
archal order  of  country-house  life  which  he  had  lately 
described  in  his  novels  with  such  affection  and  which 
he  had  built  up  for  himself,  repudiated  all  his  former 
interests,  from  war  down  to  literary  fame,  family 
life  and  religion — how  terribly  his  solitude  must 
have  weighed  upon  him  I  All  the  more  terribly  be- 
cause it  was  the  solitude  of  a  man  in  the  midst  of  a 
crowd  of  people  with  whom  he  had  nothing  in  com- 

266 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

mon.  Having  started  with  repudiation  and  not  yet 
having  found  those  positive  principles  of  love  with 
which  the  study  of  the  Gospels  afterwards  provided 
him  and  which  were  the  foundation  of  all  his  philoso- 
phy of  life,  he  wore  himself  out  with  anguish,  like 
a  man  condemned  to  death,  and  for  two  years  strug- 
gled with  the  temptation  to  suicide.  "At  diat  time, 
for  all  my  'happiness,'  I  used  to  hide  ropes  from  my- 
self, so  as  not  to  hang  myself  on  the  cross-beam  be- 
tween the  bookshelves  in  my  room,  where  I  was  alone 
every  night  when  I  undressed,  and  gave  up  going 
out  with  a  gun,  in  order  not  to  be  tempted  by  too 
easy  a  means  of  ridding  myself  of  the  burden  of 
existence."  ^ 

But  we  did  not  understand  him. 

And  when,  to  relieve  the  intolerable  oppression  of 
the  thoughts  that  tormented  him,  he  tried  to  pour 
them  out  before  us,  we  drew  timidly  away  from  him, 
in  order  not  to  have  our  childish,  selfish  happiness 
spoilt. 

It  is  true  that  at  times  he  entered  into  our  life, 
interested  himself  in  our  lessons,  and  tried  to  adapt 
himself  to  our  understanding,  but  we  felt  that  the 
interest  was  strained  and  artificial,  not  a  father's 
interest  but  a  teacher's.  And  he  was  conscious  of 
this  himself. 

8  "Confession,"  published  by  Elpidin,  Geneva. — I.  T. 


267 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  V.  I.  Alekseyef/*^  written 
in  1882,  describing  the  life  of  the  family  he  says: 
"Seryozha  is  hard  at  work  and  believes  in  the  Uni- 
versity. Tanya,  half-good,  half-serious  and  half- 
clever,  becomes  no  worse,  perhaps  improves  a  little. 
Ilyusha  grows  and  does  no  work;  his  spirit  is  not  yet 
crushed  however  by  organic  processes.  Lyolya  and 
Masha,  I  think,  are  better  than  the  rest ;  they  have  not 
caught  my  bad  manners  as  the  elder  children  have, 
and  they  seem  to  be  developing  under  more  favorable 
conditions.  .  .  ." 

I  have  quoted  this  letter,  with  its  touching  self- 
condemnation,  in  order  to  show  how  discerning  and 
conscientious  my  father  was  about  our  education,  and 
how  bitterly  he  must  have  felt  the  periods  of 
estrangement,  when  his  inward  struggles  so  dis- 
tracted him  from  his  family  that  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  treat  us  as  he  wished. 

i*A  former  tutor  at  Yasnaya  Polyana. 


268 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  MOVE  TO  MOSCOW.       SYNTAYEF.       THE  CENSUS. 
FYODOROF.       SOLOVYOF. 

IN  the  autumn  of  1881  the  whole  family  settled 
in  Moscow. 
This  move,  which  was  the  logical  outcome  of 
all  our  preceding  life,  appeared  to  be  necessary  for 
the  three  following  chief  reasons : 

My  eldest  brother  Sergei  was  at  the  University 
and  it  was  out  of  the  question  to  let  him  live  in 
Moscow  without  somebody  to  look  after  him. 

It  was  time  for  my  sister  Tanya  to  "come  out." 
She  could  not  be  left  to  run  wild  in  the  country  with- 
out any  decent  society. 

It  was  far  easier  to  educate  the  rest  of  the  family, 
if  my  father  was  not  going  to  help,  in  Moscow  than 
at  Yasnaya. 

In  the  summer  my  mother  went  into  Moscow,  a 
flat  was  rented  in  Money  Lane  ^  and  in  the  autumn 
we  moved. 

In  the  spring  of  that  year  I  had  been  to  Tula  and 
passed  the  examination   qualifying   for  promotion 

1  Denezhny  Pereulok. 

269 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

from  the  Fourth  into  the  Fifth  Form,  and  it  was  in- 
tended that  I  should  go  to  a  State  Gymnase.  My 
father  called  on  the  head  of  one  of  the  Moscow 
Classical  Gymnases  to  enter  my  name,  but  an  unex- 
pected difficulty  arose :  among  the  papers  required  by 
the  rules  for  my  entry  my  father  was  asked  to  sign 
one  guaranteeing  my  loyalty  to  the  Tsar.^ 

He  refused  to  sign  it,  and  I  had  to  go  to  Poliva- 
nof 's  private  Gymnase  instead,  where  I  was  accepted 
on  the  strength  of  the  examination,  but  without  any 
unnecessary  formalities. 

"How  can  I  guarantee  the  conduct  of  another 
human  being,  even  my  own  son's*?"  said  my  father 
indignantly.  "I  told  the  Warden  that  it  was  absurd 
to  ask  parents  to  sign  such  papers,  and  he  agreed 
that  it  was  an  unnecessary  formality,  but  it  appears 
after  all  that  they  cannot  take  a  boy  without  it." 

When  we  moved  into  Moscow  we  all  fell  under 
the  influence  of  the  new  sensations  of  town  life. 
Each  of  us  was  differently  affected  according  to  his 
or  her  disposition.  My  mother  threw  herself 
energetically  into  the  arrangement  of  the  flat  and 
the  purchase  of  furniture,  and  under  Uncle  Kostya's 
guidance  called  on  all  the  people  that  she  ought  to 
cultivate  and  saw  to  Tanya's  having  parties  to  go  to. 
Seryozha  was  wrapped  up  in  the  life  of  the  Uni- 

~  Blagonadyozhnost,  literally  "trustworthiness,"  has  this  narrower 
specific  meaning  in  official  documents. 

270 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

versity;  while  I,  in  the  intervals  between  going  to 
school  and  preparing  my  lessons,  played  knuckle- 
bones with  the  children  in  the  street,  and  by  the 
spring  had  already  fallen  in  love  with  a  schoolgirl 
whom  my  people  did  not  know. 

That  winter  my  father  made  friends  with  Syntayef 
the  sectarian,  who  greatly  interested  him  and  had 
an  undoubted  influence  on  his  views.  He  was  a 
simple  peasant-proprietor  of  Tula  Province,  a  stone- 
mason by  trade.  My  father  had  already  heard  of 
him  from  Prugavin^  in  the  Samara  days  and  went 
over  to  his  village  to  see  him. 

Syntayef  came  to  Moscow  afterwards,  in  the  win- 
ter, and  stayed  for  some  time  with  us  in  Money  Lane. 
At  first  glance  he  produced  the  impression  of  the  most 
ordinary  sort  of  impoverished  muzhik;  he  had  a  thin, 
mud-colored  beard,  tinged  with  gray,  a  greasy  black 
sheepskin  jacket,  which  he  wore  both  indoors  and  out 
of  doors,  big  colorless  eyes  and  the  typical  Northern 
pronunciation  of  o.^ 

Like  every  self-respecting  ?nuzhik  he  knew  how  to 
behave  himself  with  simple  dignity,  and  betrayed  no 
shyness  when  he  found  himself  in  good  society;  and 
when  he  spoke  one  felt  that  what  he  said  was  the 

^Prugavln:  a  man  Tolstoy  met  in  Samara,  who  was  studying 
the  varieties  of   religious  belief  among  the  Samara   peasants. 

*  That  is  to  say,  that  he  pronounced  unaccented  o's  as  o's.  In 
Moscow  and  the  southern  half  of  Russia  unaccented  o  is  pronounced 
like  a. 

271 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

result  of  careful  reflection  and  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  shake  his  convictions. 

Syntayef  agreed  with  my  father  in  many  respects. 
Like  my  father,  Syntayef  rejected  the  Church  and  all 
ritual  observances  and,  like  him  again,  preached 
brotherhood,  love,  and  "life  according  to  God." 
"Everything  is  within  you,"  he  used  to  say:  "where 
love  is,  there  is  God."  Being  a  simple  man  and  not 
understanding  compromises,  Syntayef  rejected  all 
violence  and  would  not  allow  it  even  as  a  means  of 
resisting  evil.  He  refused  to  pay  taxes  on  principle, 
because  they  go  to  maintain  the  army.  And  when 
the  police  distrained  on  his  property  and  sold  his  cat- 
tle, he  looked  on  at  his  own  ruin  without  a  murmur 
and  offered  no  opposition.  "It 's  their  sin;  let  them 
do  it.  I  will  not  open  the  gates  for  them,  but  if  they 
must,  let  them  go  in;  I  have  no  locks,"  he  said,  when 
he  told  the  tale. 

His  family  shared  his  convictions  and  had  all 
things  in  common,  not  recognizing  private  property. 
When  his  son  was  called  on  to  serve  in  the  army  he 
refused  to  take  the  oath  because  the  Gospel  says 
"Swear  not,"  and  refused  to  handle  a  rifle  because  it 
"smelt  of  blood."  For  this  he  was  sent  to  the 
Schliisselburg  Disciplinary  Battalion  and  suffered 
great  privations. 

Syntayef  saw  the  realization  of  his  ideal  of  "life 
according  to  God"  in  the  early  Christian  community 


272 


j:: 

w 

"d 

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cu 

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S 

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O 
05 

O 

^ 

■■rt 

> 

X 

-1 

;!< 

s 

s 

<; 

U.' 

cs 

t- 

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c 

■:3 

H 

X 

REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  goods.  "Fields  ought  not  to  be  divided,  forests 
ought  not  to  be  divided.  Then  we  should  need  no 
locks,  no  trade,  no  ships,  no  war.  .  .  .  Every  one 
would  be  of  one  heart  and  one  mind;  there  would  be 
no  yours  and  no  mine;  everything  would  belong  to 
the  town  or  village,"  he  said,  and  in  his  words  one 
could  feel  a  profound  belief  in  the  attainability  of 
these  ideals,  which  he  got  from  the  Gospel. 

My  father  was  so  much  interested  in  his  doctrines 
that  he  often  invited  people  to  meet  Syntayef  and 
made  him  expound  his  views  to  them. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  appearance  of 
a  man  like  this  in  Moscow,  and  especially  in  Tol- 
stoy's house,  excited  the  attention  of  the  authorities. 
Prince  Dolgoruki,  the  Governor-General,  sent  a 
smart  Captain  of  Gendarmes  to  my  father  with 
orders  to  enquire  what  Syntayef  was  doing  in  his 
house,  what  his  opinions  were  and  how  long  he  was 
going  to  stay  in  Moscow.  I  shall  never  forget  how 
my  father  received  this  Gendarme  in  his  study,  be- 
cause I  never  imagined  that  he  was  capable  of  losing 
his  temper  to  such  an  extent.  He  did  not  shake 
hands  with  him  or  ask  him  to  sit  down,  but  talked  to 
him  standing.  When  he  heard  what  he  had  come 
about  he  answered  curtly  that  he  did  not  consider 
himself  obliged  to  answer  such  questions.  When 
the  Captain  endeavored  to  reply,  my  father  turned  as 
white  as  a  sheet  and  pointing  to  the  door,  said  in 

275 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

quivering  tones :  "Leave  the  house !  For  Heaven's 
sake,  leave  the  house !  ...  At  once  I  ...  I  beg  you 
leave  the  house!"  he  shouted  at  last,  throwing  off  all 
restraint  and  hardly  giving  the  bewildered  Gendarme 
time  to  go  out,  he  slammed  the  door  after  him  with 
all  his  might. 

He  was  sorry  for  his  outburst  afterwards,  he  re- 
gretted that  he  had  lost  his  temper  and  had  been  rude 
to  any  one;  but  all  the  same,  when  the  Governor- 
General  persisted,  and  a  few  days  later  sent  his  own 
chief  secretary  Istomin  on  the  same  errand,  he  re- 
fused to  answer  his  questions  and  merely  said  that  if 
Vladimir  Andreyevitch  wanted  to  see  him,  there  was 
nothing  to  prevent  him  from  coming  himself.  I  do 
not  know  how  this  friction  with  the  authorities  would 
have  ended  if  Syntayef  had  not  gone  away  soon 
afterwards. 

That  same  year  my  father  took  part  in  the  three- 
days  census  of  Moscow.  He  selected  the  poorest 
quarter  of  the  city,  near  the  Smolensk  Market,  in- 
cluding Prototchny  Lane  and  the  then  famous  night- 
shelters,  the  "Rzhanof  Fortress"  and  others. 

We  went  about  of  an  evening  through  all  the 
rooms,  amid  horrible  smells  and  dirt,  and  my  father 
questioned  each  of  the  lodgers  as  to  what  he  lived  on, 
what  brought  him  there,  how  much  he  paid,  and  what 
he  had  to  eat.     In  the  general  room,  where  they 

276 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

were  let  in  to  sleep  free,  it  was  still  worse.  There 
was  no  need  to  ask  questions  there,  because  it  was 
evident  that  they  were  all  people  who  had  sunk  to  the 
lowest  depths,  and  the  mass  of  poverty  and  degrada- 
tion one  beheld  excited  nothing  but  horror  and  dis- 
gust. 

I  looked  at  my  father's  face  and  saw  written  on  it 
all  that  I  felt  myself,  but  in  adtiition  it  wore  a 
look  of  suffering  and  repressed  inward  struggle ;  this 
look  made  a  deep  impression  on  me  which  I  have 
never  forgotten.  I  felt  that  he  wanted  to  run  away 
as  fast  as  he  could,  just  as  I  did,  but  I  also  felt  that 
the  reason  he  could  not  do  so  was  because  there  was 
nowhere  to  run  to ;  wherever  he  went  the  impression 
of  what  he  had  seen  would  remain  with  him  and  con- 
tinue to  torment  him  just  the  same,  or  even  more. 
And  this  was  indeed  the  fact. 

This  is  how  he  describes  what  he  felt  in  his 
pamphlet  "Then  What  Must  We  Do?"  (1886): 

Town  life,  which  had  always  been  strange  and  unnat- 
ural to  me,  became  so  repulsive  that  all  the  pleasures  of 
luxury  which  had  seemed  pleasures  to  me  before  became  a 
torment.  And  search  as  I  might  in  my  heart  for  any  justifi- 
cation of  our  life,  however  small,  I  could  not  look  at  our 
own  or  anybody  else's  drawing-room,  or  a  clean  well-spread 
dining-table,  or  a  carriage  with  well-fed  coachman  and 
horses,  or  shops,  or  theaters,  or  parties,  without  a  feeling  of 
profound  irritation.  I  could  not  help  seeing  side  by  side 
with  it  the  cold,  hungry,  degraded  inhabitants  of  Lyapin 

277 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

House.  And  I  could  not  rid  myself  of  the  idea  that  those 
two  things  were  connected  and  that  the  one  was  the  result 
of  the  other.  I  remember  that,  as  this  guilty  feeling  had 
presented  itself  to  my  mind  at  the  first  moment,  so  it  con- 
tinued with  me. 


That  same  winter  my  father  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  two  interesting  people  in  Moscow  with  whom 
he  became  very  intimate,  namely  Vladimir  Fyodoro- 
vitch  Orlof  and  Nikolai  Fyodorovitch  Fyodorof. 

The  former  I  do  not  remember  very  much  of;  but 
Fyodorof,  former  Librarian  of  the  Moscow  Rum- 
yantsef  Museum,  I  can  see  before  my  eyes  at  this 
minute,  as  if  he  were  alive.  He  was  a  little  lean  old 
man  of  middle  height,  always  badly  dressed,  and 
extraordinarily  quiet  and  retiring.  Round  his  neck, 
instead  of  a  collar,  he  wore  a  sort  of  gray  check  com- 
forter, and  winter  and  summer  he  always  had  on  the 
same  old  short  overcoat.  His  face  had  an  expres- 
sion that  one  can  never  forget.  He  had  the  liveliest 
intelligent,  penetrating  eyes,  and  was  at  the  same 
time  all  alight  with  inward  goodness,  amounting  to 
childish  naivete.  If  there  are  such  things  as  saints 
they  must  be  just  like  him. 

Nikolai  Fyodorovitch  was  not  only  constitution- 
ally incapable  of  doing  harm  to  any  one;  I  think  he 
was  himself  entirely  proof  against  being  harmed  by 
other  people's  ill-will,  because  he  simply  did  not  un- 

278 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

derstand  it.  He  was  said  to  live  in  a  garret,  like  a 
real  ascetic,  sleeping  on  the  bare  boards,  living  on 
scraps,  and  giving  all  his  money  away  to  the  poor. 
As  far  as  I  remember  he  never  argued  with  my  father, 
and  what  was  still  more  remarkable,  my  father,  who 
was  always  vehement  and  impetuous  in  conversation, 
used  to  listen  to  Nikolai  Fyodorovitch  with  a  most 
attentive  air,  and  never  lost  his  temper  with  him. 

But  it  was  a  very  different  case  with  Vladimir 
Solovyof.^  At  one  time  he  used  to  visit  my  father 
pretty  often,  and  I  cannot  remember  any  occasion 
when  their  meetings  ended  without  the  most  des- 
perate disputes.  Every  time  they  met  they  made  up 
their  minds  not  to  lose  their  tempers,  and  it  always 
ended  in  the  same  way.  We  would  have  a  party  of 
visitors  taking  tea  in  the  evening,  there  would  be  gay 
and  lively  conversation,  Solovyof  cracking  jokes, 
everybody  in  good  spirits;  when  suddenly  and  unex- 
pectedly some  abstract  question  would  arise;  my 
father  would  begin  an  argument,  invariably  directed, 
for  some  reason,  at  Solovyof;  Solovyof  would  an- 
swer back,  one  word  led  to  another,  until  in  the 
end  both  jumped  up  from  their  seats  and  a  long  and 
furious  discussion  ensued.  Solovyof's  tall  thin 
figure  with  the  beautiful  waving  locks  swung  to  and 

^  A  well-known  philosopher  and  writer  on  public  affairs.  Son 
of  the  famous  historian;  born  1853.  An  idealist  and  hermit,  he 
died  of  overwork  and  self-neglect  in  1900. 

279 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

fro  like  a  pendulum  about  the  room ;  my  father  got 
excited,  they  raised  their  voices,  and  till  the  end  of 
the  evening  it  was  impossible  to  get  them  apart. 

When  the  party  broke  up,  my  father  would  go  out 
into  the  hall  to  see  the  visitors  off;  and  as  he  said 
good-by  to  Solovyof,  would  hold  his  hand  in  his, 
look  him  in  the  eyes  with  a  guilty  smile,  and  ask 
him  to  forgive  him  for  getting  so  heated.  And  so 
it  was  every  time. 

Solovyof  as  a  thinker  never  meant  very  much  to 
my  father,  and  he  soon  lost  all  interest  in  him.  My 
father  looked  on  him  merely  as  a  "brainy"  man,  and 
called  him  a  "dean's  son." 

"There  are  many  such,"  he  said.  "A  'dean's 
son'  is  a  man  who  lives  exclusively  on  what  he  can 
get  from  books.  He  reads  masses  of  books  and 
makes  inferences  from  what  he  has  read.  But  he  is 
entirely  wanting  in  the  most  important  thing  of  all 
— what  he  brings  to  them  himself.  There  are  plenty 
of  clever  people  among  the  'dean's  sons' — like 
Strakhof  for  instance;  he  was  a  very  clever  man 
indeed,  and  if  he  had  thought  things  out  in  his  own 
head  he  would  have  been  a  great  man ;  but  that  was 
where  his  misfortune  lay,   that  he  was  a  'dean's 


son',  too." 


I  heard  my  father  give  this  definition  many  years 
after  the  death  of  both  the  people  he  mentioned. 


280 


CHAPTER  XIX 

MANUAL  LABOR.        BOOT-MAKING.       HAY-MAKING. 

IN  1881  my  father  wrote  to  our  former  tutor 
V.  I.  Alexeyef :  "I  am  now  convinced  that  the 
only  means  to  show  the  way  is  by  life  itself,  the 
example  of  life.  The  influence  of  example  is  very 
slow,  very  indefinite — in  the  sense  that  I  do  not  see 
how  you  can  tell  whom  it  influences — and  very  diffi- 
cult. But  it  is  the  only  thing  that  gives  the  neces- 
sary impulse. 

"The  proof-by-example  of  the  possibility  of  a 
Christian  life,  that  is  of  a  reasonable  and  happy  life 
under  all  possible  circumstances,  is  the  one  thing  that 
can  affect  people,  and  the  one  thing  that  you  and  I 
must  achieve;  so  let  us  help  each  other  to  achieve  it." 

"The  example  of  life,"  "a  reasonable  and  happy 
life  under  all  possible  circumstances" :  this  was 
the  only  possible  solution  of  the  complicated  ques- 
tions which  beset  my  father  at  that  time,  and  this  was 
the  line  along  which  he  directed  his  own  conduct  till 
the  fatal  autumn  of  igio. 

In  spite  of  the  immense  mental  labor  which  swal- 
lowed up  all  his  energies,  my  father  numbered  him- 

281 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

self  among  the  idlers  and  parasites  who  live  on  the 
back  of  the  working-classes,  and  in  order  to  justify 
in  his  own  eyes,  to  some  extent  at  any  rate,  what  he 
called  his  indolence,  he  took  to  manual  labor,  and 
from  that  time  forth  he  never  gave  it  up  again  till  he 
was  too  weak  to  labor  any  more. 

In  a  letter  to  N.  N.  Gay,  of  July,  1892,  he  says: 
"You  cannot  imagine  how  disgusted,  ashamed,  and 
melancholy  I  feel,  now  they  are  getting  in  the  har- 
vest, to  be  living  in  the  vile  and  abominable  con- 
ditions in  which  I  do.  Especially  when  I  think  of 
former  years." 

My  father  was  always  fond  of  manual  labor  as  a 
useful  and  healthy  form  of  exercise,  and  as  a  means 
of  communion  with  Nature.  But  his  idea  of  labor 
as  a  religious  duty  became  especially  marked  from 
the  beginning  of  the  eighties.  I  remember  how  the 
first  winter  of  our  life  in  Moscow  he  used  to  go 
out  beyond  the  Moscow  River,  somewhere  in  the 
Sparrow  Hills,  and  saw  wood  with  the  muzhiks.  He 
used  to  come  home  tired  out,  covered  with  sweat,  and 
full  of  new  impressions  of  the  healthy  life  of  labor, 
and  tell  us  at  dinner  about  how  the  sawyers  worked, 
how  long  a  spell  they  did  at  a  time  and  how  much 
they  got  for  it;  and  of  course  he  always  contrasted 
their  laborious  life  and  their  poverty  with  our  luxury 
and  aristocratic  idleness. 

In  order  to  be  able  to  work  at  home  and  turn  the 

282 


CORN    GROWN    AT    YASNAVA    POLYANA 


HARVESTING   AT   YA3NAYA    POLYANA 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

long  winter  evenings  to  account,  he  began  to  learn 
bootmaking.  He  got  a  bootmaker  from  somewhere 
— a  modest  black-bearded  man,  a  typical  serious 
working-man — bought  a  set  of  implements  and 
materials,  and  set  up  a  bench  in  the  little  room  that 
he  had  next  to  his  study.  In  the  window,  beside  the 
bench,  a  curious  little  iron  stove,  heated  by  a  kero- 
sene lamp,  was  pjit  up,  for  the  double  purpose  of 
warming  the  room  and  ventilating  it.  I  remember 
that  in  spite  of  this  stove,  of  which  he  was  extremely 
proud,  it  was  always  very  stuffy  in  his  tiny  low- 
roofed  workshop  and  smelt  of  leather  and  to- 
bacco. 

The  shoemaker  used  to  come  at  fixed  hours;  master 
and  pupil  sat  side  by  side  on  low  stools  and  set  to 
work,  splicing  bristles,  closing,  hammering  the  backs 
into  shape,  pinning  the  out-soles,  building  up  the 
heel-lifts,  and  so  on.^  My  father,  who  was  always 
enthusiastic  and  thorough,  insisted  on  doing  every- 
thing himself,  and  never  gave  in  until  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  making  his  work  just  like  his  teacher's. 
He  sat  huddled  up  over  his  bench,  carefully  waxing 
his  thread,  or  splicing  his  bristle,  breaking  it,  start- 
ing afresh,  groaning  with  the  effort,  and,  pupil-like, 
triumphant  at  every  success. 

1  The  bristles  are  used  in  bootmaking  as  needle's  to  pass  through 
crooked  holes:  they  are  split  at  the  thick  end  and  spliced  with  the 
ends  of  the  waxed  thread.  "Closing"  is  sewing  the  seams  of  the 
"upper,"  joining  the  "quarter"  to  the  "vamp"  or  "golosh." 

285 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Allow  me,  Lyof  Nikolayevitch,  I  '11  do  it,"  the 
shoemaker  would  say,  seeing  my  father's  unavailing 
efforts. 

"No,  no,  I  '11  do  it  myself.  You  do  your  work, 
and  I'll  do  mine;  it's  the  only  way  to  learn." 

During  the  lessons  people  often  came  to  see  my 
father,  and  sometimes  there  was  such  a  crowd  of  in- 
terested spectators  that  there  was  no  room  to  turn 
round.  I  was  fond  of  being  with  him  too,  and  often 
spent  whole  evenings  there. 

I  remember  how  Prince  Obolenski,  my  cousin 
Elizaveta  Valerianovna's  husband,  came  in  one  day. 
My  father  had  just  learnt  how  to  drive  the  pins  into 
the  sole.  He  was  sitting,  holding  a  boot  upside 
down  between  his  knees  and  diligently  hammering 
wooden  pegs  into  the  new  red  sole.  Some  of  them 
went  wrong,  but  most  of  them  were  driven  in  suc- 
cessfully. 

"Look,  is  n't  that  grand?"  said  my  father,  exult- 
antly, holding  out  his  work  for  the  visitor  to  see. 

"It  does  n't  seem  so  very  difficult,"  said  Obolenski, 
half  in  joke. 

"Well,  you  try!" 

"Right  you  are  I" 

"Very  good;  but  on  one  condition;  every  peg  you 
drive  in  I  '11  pay  you  a  rouble,  and  every  one  you 
break  you  '11  pay  me  ten  copecks.^     Agreed?" 

2  There  are  lOO  copecks  or  farthings  to  a  rouble. 

286 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Obolenski  took  the  boot,  awl,  and  hammer,  and 
broke  eight  pegs  one  after  the  other;  then  he  laughed 
with  his  good-humored  laugh  and  amid  general  hilar- 
ity paid  up  eighty  copecks  which  went  to  the  shoe- 
maker. 

I  remember  another  occasion,  connected  with  my 
only  reminiscence  of  the  poet  Polonski.  We  were 
sitting  at  the  bench  working  one  night — I  say  'we,' 
because  I  also  learnt  the  business,  and  was  not  at  all 
a  bad  hand  at  bootmaking  at  one  time — when  the 
footman,  Sergei  Petrovitch,  came  and  said  that  a  Mr. 
Potogonski  would  like  to  see  the  Count. 

"Who  on  earth  is  Potogonski?  I  don't  know  any 
one  of  the  name.     Show  him  up,"  said  my  father. 

At  least  five  minutes  elapsed.  We  had  already 
forgotten  about  Potogonski,  when  suddenly  we  heard 
what  sounded  like  strange  uneven  wooden  footsteps 
in  the  passage.  The  door  opened  and  a  tall  gray- 
headed  man  on  crutches  appeared.  Looking  up  at 
the  visitor  and  recognizing  him  at  once,  my  father 
jumped  up  and  kissed  him. 

"Good  Heavens !  So  it 's  you,  Yakof  Petrovitch ! 
For  Heaven's  sake  forgive  me  for  having  made  you 
come  up  all  these  stairs.  If  I  had  known  I  would 
have  come  down,  but  Sergei  said  'Potogonski.'  I 
never  imagined  for  a  moment  it  could  be  you.  What 
will  you  take*?" 

"Well,  under  the  circumstances,  I  '11  take  a  pot  o' 

287 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

potogonnoye;  ^  I  should  enjoy  a  little  tea,"  laughed 
Polonski,  panting  from  his  exertions  and  seating  him- 
self on  the  sofa.  ' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  order  to  get  to  my  father's 
study,  the  poor  lame  old  gentleman  had  to  climb  up 
two  flights  of  stairs,  go  through  the  zala^  down  some 
very  steep  steps,  and  then  along  a  dimly  lighted  pas- 
sage full  of  steps  and  comers.  Neither  before  nor 
after  that  occasion  did  I  ever  see  Polonski,  and  I 
remember  very  little  about  this  visit;  for  some  reason 
or  other  I  soon  left  the  room  and  was  not  present 
during  his  conversation  with  my  father. 

My  father's  other  instructor  in  shoemaking  was 
our  own  man  Pavel  Arbuzof,  son  of  Marya  Afanas- 
yevna  the  nurse,  and  brother  of  Sergei  the  footman. 
My  father  worked  with  him  one  time  at  Yasnaya 
Polyana. 

In  the  summer  my  father  worked  in  the  fields.  If 
he  heard  of  the  poverty  and  distress  of  any  widow  or 
sick  old  man,'*  he  would  undertake  to  work  on  their 
behalf  and  plowed,  reaped  and  carried  their  com 
for  them. 

When  he  first  began,  he  was  entirely  alone  in  these 
occupations;  no  one  took  any  interest  in  them  and 
most  of  the  family  looked  on  his  field-work  as  a 

3  Potogonnoye  means  "sudorific." 

■*  That  is,  heads  of  households  unable  to  take  advantage  of  their 
share  in  the  communal  fields  of  the  village. 

288 


PACKING   APPLES    ON    TOLSTOY  S    ESTATE 


SORTING  THE   FRUIT 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

whim,  and  felt  rather  sorry  that  he  should  waste  his 
valuable  energies  on  such  heavy  and  unproductive 
labor.  Although  my  father  had  become  much  gent- 
ler by  this  time,  lost  his  temper  less  in  argument,  was 
less  prone  to  find  fault  with  others,  and  was  some- 
times gay  and  sociable  as  he  used  to  be  in  the  old 
days,  still  we  all  felt  the  harshness  of  the  discord 
between  our  life,  with  its  croquet  and  visitors  and 
endless  round  of  amusements,  and  my  father's,  with 
its  successive  spells  of  strenuous  work,  in  his  study 
and  in  the  fields,  at  his  writing-table  and  at  the  plow- 
tail. 

The  first  member  of  the  family  who  allied  herself 
with  my  father  was  my  sister  Masha,  who  is  now 
dead.^ 

In  1885  she  was  fifteen  years  old.  She  was  a  thin, 
fair  girl,  lissom  and  rather  tall,  resembling  my 
mother  in  figure,  but  taking  more  after  my  father 
in  features,  with  the  same  strongly  marked  cheek- 
bones and  with  bright  blue  eyes.  Quiet  and  retiring 
in  disposition,  she  always  had  a  certain  air  of  being, 
as  it  were,  rather  "put  upon."  She  felt  for  my 
father's  solitude,  and  was  the  first  of  the  whole  fam- 
ily to  draw  away  from  the  society  of  those  of  her 
own  age  and  unobtrusively  but  firmly  and  definitely 
go  over  to  my  father's  side. 

Always  a  champion  of  the  downtrodden  and  un- 

5  She  married  Prince  N.  L.  Obolenski  in  1897  and  died  in  1906. 

291 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

fortunate,  Masha  threw  herself  whole-heartedly  into 
the  interests  of  the  poor  of  the  village  and,  whenever 
she  could,  helped  them  with  such  little  physical 
strength  as  she  had,  and  above  all  with  her  great 
responsive  heart.  There  were  no  doctors  about  the 
house  as  yet  at  that  time,  and  all  the  sick  people  of 
Yasnaya  Polyana,  and  often  of  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages, came  to  Masha  for  assistance.^ 

She  often  used  to  go  about  from  house  to  house 
visiting  her  patients,  and  the  peasants  of  our  village 
remember  her  with  lively  gratitude,  while  the  women 
are  still  firmly  convinced  that  Marya  Lvovna 
"knew,"  and  could  always  tell  without  fail  whether 
a  patient  would  recover  or  not. 

That  same  summer  a  young  Jew  named  F.  ap- 
peared at  Yasnaya  Polyana;  at  that  time  he  was  a 
sincere  disciple  of  my  father's,  a  disinterested  and 
convinced  idealist.  He  lived  in  the  village  and 
worked  for  the  peasants,  without  demanding  any 
payment  for  his  work  beyond  the  simplest  and  most 
Spartan  fare,  and  he  dreamed  of  founding  a  society 
with  community  of  goods  like  the  early  Christians. 
In  order  to  avoid  trouble  with  the  authorities  he  had 
himself  christened  into  the  Russian  Church. 

At  one  time  F.  was  carried  away  to  such  an  extent 

6  After  Tolstoy's  illness  in  the  Crimea  a  doctor  always  lived  in 
the  house:  Tolstoy  stipulated  that  if  a  doctor  were  kept  for  him 
he  must  also  attend  the  muzhiks  of  the  neighborhood. — Maude's 
"Life  of  Tolstoy." 

292 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

by  Christian  ideas,  that  he  astonished  every  one  by 
his  thoroughgoingness,  and  had  a  certain  influence 
even  among  the  villagers,  especially  among  the 
younger  ones.  He  had  a  wife,  a  pretty  Jewess  called 
Rebecca,  and  a  baby,  and  they  lived  in  a  cottage  and 
literally  starved.  F.  used  to  bring  them  the  crusts 
of  bread  that  he  got  for  his  labor,  and  very  often, 
when  he  worked  for  very  poor  peasants,  he  got  noth- 
ing at  all  and  went  hungry  too.  Rebecca  went  about 
the  village  and  sometimes  about  our  demesne,  dressed 
in  rags,  and  got  food  for  herself  and  her  little  boy 
wherever  she  could  by  begging.  At  last  she  insisted 
on  her  husband  demanding  at  least  a  pipkin  of  milk 
every  day  for  the  child  in  return  for  his  work.  But 
he  did  not  think  it  right  even  to  do  that,  and  it  ended 
in  his  wife,  who  could  no  longer  bear  such  an  exist- 
ence, leaving  him  and  going  away. 

One  evening  F.  came  in  to  see  my  father  and  asked 
him  to  read  something  aloud  to  him.  While  my 
father  was  reading  F.  suddenly  turned  pale  and  fell 
fainting  on  the  floor.  It  appeared  that  he  had  been 
working  all  day  without  having  anything  to  eat,  and 
had  fainted  from  hunger.  This  event  had  an  over- 
whelming effect  on  my  father,  and  he  could  never 
forget  it.  "We  well-fed  people  stuff  ourselves  and 
do  no  work,  while  this  man  has  been  working  the 
whole  day  and  famted  from  sheer  hunger."  What  a 
vivid  and  terrible  contrast  I 

293 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Another  time,  in  the  autumn,  a  passing  Gipsy  got 
F.  to  give  him  his  only  tunic,  and  when  winter  ap- 
proached, F.  had  absolutely  nothing  to  wear  but  a 
hempen  shirt.  Of  course  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
talk  about  it;  it  ended  in  people  taking  pity  on 
him,  and  by  the  winter-time  he  was  fitted  out  with  a 
better  wardrobe  than  he  had  when  he  came. 

I  arrived  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  after  my  examina- 
tion, at  the  beginning  of  June  that  year,  when  all  the 
family  was  assembled  at  home,  and  our  summer  life 
was  following  its  customary  beaten  track.  I  was 
nineteen  years  old,  looked  on  myself  as  already  en- 
gaged to  my  present  wife,  and  dreamed  of  getting 
married  and  beginning  a  new  life  with  her,  in  accord- 
ance with  my  father's  views.  I  did  not  know  what 
to  do  with  my  superfluous  energy  and  went  and  told 
my  father  that  I  wanted  to  do  some  outdoor  work, 
and  asked  him  to  tell  me  what  to  do. 

"Good  I  I  will.  Go  to  Zharova's;  her  husband 
left  her  last  winter  to  go  and  earn  money  in  town  and 
has  not  come  back  again;  she  has  a  struggle  to  get 
along,  with  her  children  on  her  hands,  and  has  no 
one  to  plow  her  strips  for  her.  Get  a  wooden 
plow,'  harness  Mordvin  and  go  and  plow  for 
her;  it's  just  the  moment  for  turning  over  the 
fallow." 

■^  Sokhd,  the  short-tailed,  shafted,  wooden  plow  used  by  the  peas- 
ants; light  enough  to  be  swung  up  on  the  side  of  a  horse  when 
going  to  and  returning  from  the  fields. 

294 


^.'  1..^  "^7 


\ILLAGE    NEAR    VASNAVA    FOLVANA 


HAY-MAKING   ON    TOLSTOY 'S    ESTATE 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

I  did  as  he  told  me,  and  soon  had  several  strips  at 
the  back  of  the  village,  near  the  lake,  plowed  up. 
I  well  remember  the  sensation  of  doing  useful  work, 
which  was  new  to  me,  and  how  pleasant  and  tranquil- 
izing  it  was.  You  feel  like  a  horse  harnessed  to  the 
plow  you  are  following,  turning  up  furrow  after 
furrow;  you  think  your  leisurely  thoughts,  you  keep 
watching  the  shining  ribbon  of  earth,  the  endless 
band  sliding  off  the  mold-board,  the  fat  white  cock- 
chafer grubs  wriggling  helplessly  in  the  fresh  furrow, 
the  rooks  which  follow  the  track  of  the  plow,  without 
paying  you  the  slightest  attention,  picking  up  what 
they  can  find ;  and  you  never  notice  you  are  tired  till 
dinner-time  comes,  or  the  twilight  drives  you  home 
again.  Then  you  turn  your  plow  upside  down,  tie  it 
up  to  the  carriers,  get  up  sideways  on  your  horse  and 
ride  home,  with  your  legs  jogging  against  the  shafts, 
meditating  pleasantly  on  the  coming  food  and 
rest. 

Very  often,  when  I  had  taken  my  horse  back  to  the 
stable,  without  waiting  for  the  family  meal,  I  would 
run  straight  into  the  outdoor  servants'  hall,  where 
they  were  dining  on  the  bare  table,  seat  myself  in  a 
corner  between  a  coachman  and  a  laundress,  and  sup 
up  cold  quass  with  pounded  onion  and  potatoes,  or 
heavily  salted  watery  crumb-broth  ^  with  a  dash  of 
green  oil,  in  a  round  wooden  spoon. 

8  Murtsovka,  black  bread  crumbled  in  quass  or  water. 

297 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

By  St.  Peter's  Day  ^  we  had  begun  to  mow  the  hay. 
As  a  rule  the  Yasnaya  peasants  got  in  the  hay  from 
our  fields  for  payment  in  kind,  on  a  sharing  arrange- 
ment. Before  the  hay-making  began  they  used  to 
form  themselves  into  gangs  ^^  of  several  families 
apiece,  and  each  gang  had  its  own  pieces  to  mow  and 
carry,  at  the  rate  of  a  third  share  of  the  hay,  or  two- 
fifths,  for  payment,  according  to  the  quality  of  the 
grass. 

Our  gang  consisted  of  two  peasants, — the  tall 
Vasili  Mikheyef  and  the  long-nosed  dwarfish  Osip 
Makarof — my  father,  F.  the  Jew,  and  myself.  We 
undertook  to  mow  the  new  garden  beyond  the  ave- 
nues, and  the  water-meadow  by  the  Voronka.  I 
mowed  for  the  benefit  of  Zharova  again,  and  my 
father  and  F.  for  some  one  else. 

It  was  a  very  hot  summer  and  we  had  to  get  the 
hay  carried  quickly,  because  the  rye  ^^  would  soon  be 
ripe,  and  the  peasants  had  no  time  to  spare.  The 
grass  in  the  fields  had  been  burnt  up  by  the  sun  and 
was  as  dry  and  tough  as  wire.  It  was  only  very 
early  in  the  morning  when  the  dew  was  on  it  that  it 

^  June  29th,  i.  e.,  July  nth,  new  style. 

10  Artels.  Whatever  work  they  have  in  hand  Russians  always 
form  themselves  into  disciplined  gangs  and  work  for  common 
profit.  In  their  more  highly  developed  form,  in  the  towns,  the 
Artels  are  big  organizations  or  Guilds  for  each  trade,  resembling 
our  Trade  Unions,  except  that  they  are  organized  for  the  common 
liability  as  well  as  the  common  advantage  of  the  members. 

11  That  is,  the  "winter  rye,"  sown  the  previous  autumn. 

298 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

lay  at  all  lightly  on  the  scythe,  and  we  had  to  get 
up  at  dawn  in  order  to  get  the  task  we  had  set  our- 
selves overnight  done  in  time.  Our  best  mower, 
Vasi'li,  went  in  front,  then  came  Osip,  my  father,  F., 
and  myself.  My  father  mowed  well  and  never  fell 
behind,  though  he  sweated  copiously  and  evidently 
got  tired.  For  some  reason  or  other,  when  he  saw 
me  at  it,  he  declared  that  I  mowed  like  a  carpenter; 
there  was  something  about  me  in  the  turn  of  the  waist 
and  the  sweep  of  the  scythe  that  suggested  a  car- 
penter to  him.  When  the  sun  was  high  we  tedded 
the  hay  and  gathered  it  into  cocks,  and  when  the 
evening  dew  fell,  went  out  again  with  our  scythes 
and  mowed  till  night. 

Following  our  example,  another  gang  was  fonned 
like  ours,  a  big  and  merry  one  this,  which  my  brothers 
Sergei  and  Lyof  joined,  besides  the  governess's  ^^  son, 
Alcide,  a  boy  of  the  same  age  as  myself,  a  capital 
fellow,  whom  the  peasants  knew  as  Aldakim  Alda- 
kimovitch. 

My  sister  Masha  was  in  our  gang,  while  Tanya 
and  my  two  cousins,  Masha  and  Vera  Kuzminski, 
were  in  the  other. 

Our  gang  was  very  serious  and  solemn :  theirs  was 
frivolous  and  gay.  On  Sundays  and  holidays,  and 
sometimes  on  ordinary  working-days,  the  other  gang 
sold  their  haycocks  for  drinks;  they  had  endless  songs 

12  Mme.  Seuron,  the  French  lady. 

299 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  amusement;  while  we,  "the  saints,"  behaved  our- 
selves with  great  gravity,  and  had,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, rather  a  dull  time  of  it.  I  must  also  confess 
that  sometimes  when  they  sold  a  cock  my  brother 
Lyof,  who  did  not  drink  vodka,  kept  his  share  of  it  for 
me,  and  I  enjoyed  playing  traitor  to  my  gang  every 
now  and  then  and  drinking  his  glass.  This  did  not 
prevent  me  from  looking  down  on  their  gang,  all  the 
more  as  their  merry-making  ended  in  disaster.  The 
drunken  7nuzluks  got  fighting  and  Semyon  Rezunof, 
the  head  of  the  gang,  broke  his  father  Sergei's  arm. 

The  summer  I  am  telling  about  was  remarkable 
for  the  fact  that  the  passion  for  outdoor  work  infected 
every  one  staying  in  the  house  at  Yasnaya  Polyana. 
Even  my  mother  used  to  come  out  to  the  hay-fields 
in  a  sarafan  with  a  rake,  and  my  uncle,  an  oldish  man 
occupying  a  dignified  official  position  at  the  time, 
mowed  so  vigorously  that  his  hands  were  covered 
with  huge  blisters.  Of  course  very  few  of  those  who 
worked  shared  my  father's  convictions  or  had  any 
theoretical  ideas  about  manual  labor,  but  it  so  hap- 
pened that  summer  that  the  whole  household  went  in 
for  outdoor  work  and  every  one  took  an  interest  in  it, 
some  on  its  merits,  and  some  merely  as  a  pleasant 
and  healthy  form  of  athletics. 

We  used  to  have  periodical  visits  about  that  time 

from  Mr. ,  one  of  my  father's  younger  disciples. 

He  came  when  field  operations  were  in  full  swing. 

300 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

After  breakfast  the  whole  company  collected  and  we 
all  went  to  the  stables  where  our  tools  were  kept.  I 
was  just  then  helping  my  father  to  build  a  coach- 
house in  the  village  for  one  of  the  villagers;  F.  the 
Jew  was  thatching  somebody's  cottage;  while  my 
sisters  were  busy  binding  rye-sheaves.  Every  one 
took  the  tools  he  needed;  I  and  my  father  took  saws 
and  axes ;  ^^  F.  took  a  pitchfork,  my  sisters  took 
rakes,  and  we  set  out. 

Mr. was  going  with  my  father  and  me.     My 

sister  Tanya,  who  was  always  lively  and  fond  of 

fun,  seeing  that  Mr. was  setting  out  with  empty 

hands,  turned  to  him,  calling  him  by  his  Christian 
name  and  patronymic. 

"And  where  are  you  going, *?" 

"To  the  villa-a-age." 

"What  for?" 

"To  he-e-elp." 

"Why,  how  are  you  going  to  help?  You  have  n't 
got  any  tools.  Here,  take  a  rake;  it  '11  do  to  hand 
them  up  the  straw."  ^^ 

"Oh,   I   shall   help   them   with   advi-i-ice,"    said 

Mr. ,  speaking,  as  he  always  did,  with  a  drawl 

like  an  Englishman,  quite  unaware  of  Tanya's  irony, 
and  how  ridiculous  and  useless  he  would  be  with  his 

13  Russian   workmen   use   an   axe   for   all   sorts   of  work ;    an    axe 
serves  them  for  bradawl,  chisel,  and  hammer. 

1*  The  straw,  i.  e.,  for  caulking  the  seams  between  the  logs. 

301 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

advice  in  "the  villa-a-age,"  where  everybody  has  to 
work  hard,  and  where  people  dressed  up  in  baggy 
English  knickerbockers  and  Norfolk  jackets  are 
merely  in  the  way  and  interfere  with  other  people's 
work. 

I  record  this  incident  with  regret,  as  a  character- 
istic sample  of  the  type  of  the  "Tolstoyites,"  of 
whom  we  hear  so  much.  How  many  such  "advisers" 
have  I  seen  in  my  time  I  How  many  of  them  turned 
up  at  Yasnaya  Polyana  I  And  among  them  all  how 
few  really  convinced  and  sincere  believers!  Many 
of  them  turned  abruptly  aside  during  my  father's 
lifetime,  while  others  still  stalk  vaingloriously  in  his 
shadow  and  only  do  harm  to  his  memory.  My  father 
had  good  reason  for  saying  that  the  "Tolstoyites" 
were  to  him  the  most  incomprehensible  sect  and  the 
furthest  removed  from  his  way  of  thinking  that  he 
had  ever  come  across. 

"I  shall  soon  be  dead,"  he  sadly  predicted,  "and 
people  will  say  that  Tolstoy  taught  men  to  plow 
and  reap  and  make  boots;  while  the  chief  thing  that 
I  have  been  trying  so  hard  to  say  all  my  life,  the  thing 
I  believe  in,  the  most  important  of  all,  they  will 
forget." 


302 


CHAPTER  XX 

MY    FATHER    AS    A    FATHER 

AT  this  point  I  will  turn  back  and  try  to  trace 
the  influence  which  my  father  had  on  my 
upbringing,  and  I  will  recall,  as  well  as  I 
can,  the  impressions  that  he  left  on  my  mind  in  my 
childhood,  and  later  in  the  melancholy  days  of  my 
early  manhood,  which  happened  to  coincide  with  the 
radical  change  in  his  whole  philosophy  of  life. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  "Anke  Pie"  which 
my  mother  brought  to  Yasnaya  Polyana  from  the 
Behrs  family.  In  making  my  mother  bear  all  the 
responsibility  for  that  "pie,"  I  have  done  her  an 
injustice;  for  my  father,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage, 
had  his  own  "Anke  pie"  too,  though  I  dare  say  he 
had  grown  too  used  to  it  to  notice  it.  His  "pie" 
was  that  ancient  tradition  of  life  at  Yasnaya  Polyana 
which  he  found  when  he  came  into  the  world,  and 
which  he  afterwards  dreamed  of  restoring. 

In  1852,  tired  of  life  in  the  Caucasus  and  mindful 
of  his  old  home  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  he  writes  to 
his  aunt,  Tatyana  Alexandrovna,^  describing  "the 
happiness  which  awaits  me." 

1  T.  A.  Yergolskaya,  a  distant  relative,  who  took  the  chief  part 
in  bringing  him  up  after  his  mother's  death. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

This  Is  how  I  picture  it  to  myself:  After  some  years, 
I  shall  find  myself,  neither  very  young  nor  very  old,  back 
at  Yasnaya  Polyana  again :  my  affairs  will  all  be  in  order ; 
I  shall  have  no  anxieties  for  the  future,  and  no  troubles 
in  the  present.  You  also  will  be  living  at  Yasnaya.  You 
will  be  getting  a  little  old,  but  you  will  still  be  healthy  and 
vigorous.  We  shall  lead  the  life  we  led  in  the  old  days: 
I  shall  work  in  the  mornings,  but  we  shall  meet  and  see 
each  other  almost  all  day. 

We  shall  dine  together  in  the  evening.  I  shall  read  you 
something  that  interests  you.  Then  we  shall  talk;  I  shall 
tell  you  about  my  life  in  the  Caucasus ;  you  will  give  me 
reminiscences  of  my  father  and  mother;  you  will  tell  me 
some  of  those  "terrible  stories"  to  which  we  used  to  listen 
in  the  old  days  with  frightened  eyes  and  open  mouths. 
We  shall  talk  about  the  people  that  we  loved  and  who 
are  no  more.  You  will  cry,  and  I  shall  cry  too;  but  oui 
tears  will  be  refreshing,  tranquilizing  tears.  We  shall  talk 
about  my  brothers  who  will  visit  us  from  time  to  time,  and 
about  dear  Masha,^  who  will  also  spend  several  months 
every  year  at  Yasnaya,  which  she  loves  so,  with  all  her 
children.  We  shall  have  no  acquaintances;  no  one  will 
come  in  to  bore  us  with  gossip.  It  is  a  wonderful  dream. 
But  that  is  not  all  that  I  let  myself  dream  of.  I  shall  be 
married.  My  wife  will  be  gentle,  kind,  and  affectionate ; 
she  will  love  you  as  I  do;  we  shall  have  children  who 
will  call  you  Granny;  you  will  live  in  the  big  house,  in 
the  room  on  the  top  floor  where  my  grandmother  lived 
before.^     The  whole  house  will  be  run  on  the  same  lines 

2  My  father's  sister.— I.  T.     The  nun. 

2'Pelageya  Nikolayevna,  Nikolai  Ilyitch's  mother. — I.  T.  I.  e., 
Tolstoy's  father's  mother. 


O 

3 


rr  H 

w  2 

:;  \^ 

ft-  O 

-  '  -< 

■< 

r  < 

-1  PI 

o 

r  § 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

as  it  was  in  my  father's  time,  and  we  shall  begin  the  same 
life  over  again,  but  with  a  change  of  roles.  You  will  take 
my  grandmother's  place,  but  you  will  be  better  still  than 
she  was;  I  shall  take  my  father's  place,  though  I  can  never 
hope  to  be  worthy  of  the  honor.  My  wife  will  take  my 
mother's  place,  and  the  children  ours.  Masha  will  fill  the 
part  of  both  my  aunts,''  except  for  their  sorrow;  and  there 
will  even  be  Gasha  °  there  to  take  the  place  of  Praskovya 
Ilyinitchna.  The  only  thing  lacking  will  be  some  one  to 
take  the  part  you  played  in  the  life  of  our  family.  We 
shall  never  find  such  a  noble  and  loving  heart  as  yours. 
There  is  no  one  to  succeed  you. 

There  will  be  three  fresh  faces  that  will  appear  among 
us  from  time  to  time,  namely,  miy  brothers ;  especially  one 
who  will  often  be  with  us,  Nikolenka,  who  will  be  an  old 
bachelor,  bald,  retired,  always  the  same  kindly  noble  fellow. 
I  imagine  him  telling  the  children  stories  of  his  own 
composition,  as  of  old;  the  children  kissing  his  grubby 
hands,  which  will  still  be  grubby,  but  worthy  to  be  kissed 
nevertheless.  I  see  him  playing  with  them;  my  wife  bus- 
tling about  to  prepare  him  his  favorite  dish;  him  and  my- 
self going  over  our  reminiscences  of  the  old  long-ago  days ; 
you  sitting  in  your  accustomed  place  listening  to  us  with 
interest.  You  will  still  call  us  by  the  old  names  of 
Lyovotchka  and  Nikolenka  in  spite  of  our  age  and  you  will 
scold  me  for  eating  my  food  with  my  fingers,  and  him  for 
not  having  washed  his  hands. 

If  I  were  made  Emperor  of  Russia,  if  I  were  given  Peru 
for  my  own,  in  short.  If  a  fairy  came  with  her  wand  and 

*  Pelageya  Ilyinitchna  Yushiiova  and  Alexandra  Ilyinitchna 
Osten-Saken. — I.   T. 

sAgafya  Mikhailovna.— I.  T. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

asked  me  what  I  wanted,  I  should  lay  my  hand  on  my  heart 
and  answer  that  I  wanted  these  dreams  to  become  realities. 

Just  ten  years  after  this  letter  my  father  married 
and  almost  all  his  dreams  were  realized,  exactly  as 
he  had  designed.  Only  the  big  house  with  his  grand- 
mother's room  was  missing,  and  his  brother  Niko- 
lenka  with  the  dirty  hands,  for  he  died  two  years 
before,  in  i860.  In  his  family  life  my  father  wit- 
nessed a  repetition  of  the  life  of  his  parents,  and  in 
us  children  he  sought  to  find  a  repetition  of  himself 
and  his  brothers. 


This  was  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  were  brought 
up  and  continued  to  live  till  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
ties. We  were  educated  as  regular  "gentlefolk," 
proud  of  our  social  position  and  holding  aloof  from 
all  the  outer  world.  Everything  that  was  not  us  was 
below  us,  and  therefore  unworthy  of  imitation. 

When  our  neighbor  Alexander  Nikolayevitch 
Bibikof  and  his  son  Nikolenka  were  asked  to  our 
Christmas  tree,  we  used  to  take  note  of  everything 
that  Nikolenka  did  that  was  n't  "the  thing,"  and  aft- 
wards  used  "Nikolenka  Bibikof"  as  a  term  of  abuse 
among  ourselves,  considering  that  there  was  nobody 
in  the  world  so  stupid  and  contemptible  as  he  was. 
And  we  regarded  Nikolenka  in  this  light  because  we 
could  see  that  papa  regarded  his  father  in  the  same 

308 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

way.  Alexander  Nikolayevitch  was  very  respectful 
towards  papa  and  would  never  think  of  coming  to 
call  without  four  horses  to  his  carriage;  while  papa 
did  not  go  in  for  such  ceremony  and  used  to  go  over 
to  Telyatinka  in  an  ordinary  cart  without  a  coach- 
man, or  sometimes  just  on  horseback.  My  father 
told  me  that  Bibikof  always  considered  it  necessary  to 
talk  on  intellectual  subjects  with  him,  and  often  put 
him  scientific  questions,  such  as  "Why  does  the  sun 
shine?" 

The  chief  constable  of  the  hundred  was  so  respect- 
ful that  he  never  took  the  liberty  of  driving  right  up 
to  the  house.  When  he  got  within  a  mile  he  used 
to  tie  up  his  bell,^  and  when  he  got  within  a  hundred 
yards  he  used  to  stop  his  horses  in  the  avenue  and 
come  on  to  the  house  on  foot.  He  was  received  in 
the  hall  and  never  shaken  hands  with. 

We  also  looked  down  on  the  village  children.  I 
never  took  any  interest  in  them  till  I  found  they 
could  teach  me  things  I  knew  nothing  of  and  was 
forbidden  to  know.  I  was  about  ten  years  old  then. 
We  used  to  go  down  to  the  village  to  toboggan  on 
footstools  in  the  snow,  and  struck  up  a  friendship 
with  the  peasants'  children ;  but  papa  soon  discovered 
the  interest  we  took  in  them  and  put  a  stop  to  it. 

^  The  bell  is  a  bell  like  a  dinner  bell  hung  in  the  dugd  or  wooden 
arch  which  rises  from  the  shafts  over  the  horse's  neck.  The  police 
officer  in  question  is  head  of  a  Stan,  which  is  a  division  of  the 
District,  which  is  a  division  of  the  Province. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

And  so  we  grew  up,  surrounded  on  every  side  by  a 
stone  wall  of  English  nurses,  and  French,  German, 
and  Russian  tutors;  and  in  these  surroundings  our 
parents  had  no  difficulty  in  keeping  an  eye  on  all  we 
did,  and  directing  our  life  the  way  they  wanted  it  to 
go,  especially  as  they  were  both  quite  of  one  mind 
about  our  upbringing  and  their  views  had  as  yet 
shown  no  tendency  to  diverge. 

Besides  certain  subjects  which  my  father  under- 
took to  teach  us  himself,  he  paid  particular  attention 
to  our  physical  development,  to  gymnastics  and  all 
kinds  of  athletics  tending  to  develop  courage  and 
self-reliance.  At  one  period  he  used  to  take  us  all 
every  day  to  a  place  in  one  of  the  avenues  where 
there  was  an  outdoor  gymnasium ;  and  we  all  had  to 
go  through  a  number  of  difficult  exercises  in  turn  on 
the  trapeze  and  rings  and  parallel  bars. 

The  most  difficult  of  all  was  an  exercise  on  the 
trapeze  where  you  had  to  pass  through  between  your 
hands  with  your  back  to  the  bar;  this  exercise  was 
known  as  "Mikhail  Ivanovitch."  Papa  and  Mon- 
sieur Rey  could  do  it,  but  it  was  difficult  for  us  boys 
and  we  had  a  lot  of  trouble  before  we  could  manage 
it.  Seryozha  achieved  it  first,  and  I  was  a  bad  sec- 
ond. 

When  we  were  going  out  for  a  walk  or  a  ride  papa 
never  waited  for  those  who  were  late,  and  when  I 
lagged  behind  and  cried  he  used  to  mimic  me  and  say, 

310 


TOLSTOY    AND    HIS    GRANDCHILDREN 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Nobody  waits  for  me  I"  and  I  used  to  bellow  louder 
than  ever  and  get  perfectly  furious;  but  I  caught 
them  up  all  the  same. 

The  word  "milksop"  was  a  favorite  word  of  abuse 
with  us  and  there  was  nothing  more  humiliating  in 
the  world  than  for  one  of  us  to  be  called  a  milksop 
by  my  father.  I  remember  how  my  grandmother 
Pelageya  Ilyinitchna  was  once  trimming  a  lamp  and 
took  the  hot  chimney  in  her  hands.  It  burnt  her  so 
badly  that  it  raised  blisters  on  her  fingers,  but  she  did 
not  drop  the  chimney;  she  put  it  carefully  down  on 
the  table.  Papa  was  a  witness  of  this,  and  whenever 
he  had  occasion  to  blame  any  of  us  for  cowardice 
afterwards  he  used  to  recall  the  incident  and  hold  it 
up  before  us  as  an  example.  "There  's  pluck  for 
you !  Your  grandmother  had  a  perfect  right  to  drop 
the  chimney  on  the  floor:  it  only  cost  a  penny,  and 
your  granny  can  earn  five  times  as  much  as  that 
in  a  day  by  her  knitting  alone;  but  still  she  did  n't. 
She  burnt  her  fingers,  but  she  did  n't  drop  it. 
You  'd  have  dropped  it.  .  .  .  And  I  dare  say  I 
should  too !"  he  added,  quite  enthusiastic  at  her  cour- 
age. 

My  father  hardly  ever  i?mde  us  do  anything;  but  it 
always  somehow  came  about  that  of  our  own  initia- 
tive we  did  exactly  what  he  wanted  us  to.  My 
mother  often  scolded  us  and  punished  us;  but  when 
my  father  wanted  to  make  us  do  something  he  merely 

313 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

looked  us  hard  in  the  eyes,  and  we  understood:  his 
look  was  far  more  effective  than  any  command. 

Here  is  an  illustration  of  the  difference  between 
my  father's  method  and  my  mother's.  Supposing 
you  wanted  a  sixpence  for  something.  If  you  went 
to  my  mother  she  would  ask  a  lot  of  questions  about 
what  it  was  for,  and  tell  you  you  were  very  naughty, 
and  occasionally  refuse.  If  you  went  to  my  father 
he  would  ask  no  questions,  would  merely  look 
you  in  the  eyes  and  say:  ''You'll  find  one  on  the 
table !"  But  however  much  I  wanted  that  sixpence 
I  never  used  to  go  and  get  it  from  my  father  but 
always  preferred  to  go  and  get  it  out  of  my  mother. 

To  please  my  father,  my  brother  Seryozha  spent 
a  whole  winter  learning  Latin,  and  when  he  could 
read  it,  went  and  showed  my  father  as  a  surprise. 

My  father's  great  power  as  an  educator  lay  in  this, 
that  it  was  as  impossible  to  conceal  anything  from 
him  as  from  one's  own  conscience.  He  knew  ev- 
erything, and  to  deceive  him  was  just  like  deceiving 
oneself:  it  was  nearly  impossible  and  quite  useless. 

My  father's  influence  over  me  was  very  vividly 
displayed  in  the  question  of  my  marriage  and  in  my 
relations  with  women  before  my  marriage. 

Sometimes  the  most  trifling  incident  or  the  most 
casual  word  said  at  the  right  moment  leaves  a  deep 
impression  and  influences  the  whole  of  a  man's  after- 
life.    So  it  was  with  me. 

314 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

One  morning  I  was  running  down  the  long  straight 
staircase  at  home  at  Yasnaya  taking  two  steps  at  a 
time  and,  according  to  custom,  jumping  down  the 
last  few  steps  with  a  dashing  acrobatic  jump.  I  was 
sixteen  at  the  time  and  pretty  strong,  and  the  jump 
was  a  very  fine  performance.  At  that  moment  my 
father  happened  to  be  coming  across  the  hall  towards 
the  foot  of  the  staircase.  When  he  saw  me  flying 
through  the  air  he  stopped  at  the  bottom  and  spread 
out  his  arms  to  catch  me  in  case  I  missed  my  footing 
and  fell,  I  sank  down  agilely  on  my  heels,  straight- 
ened myself  up  and  said  good-morning. 

"What  an  athletic  young  chap  you  are  I"  he  said, 
smiling  and  evidently  admiring  my  boyish  vigor. 
"A  young  fellow  like  you  would  have  been  married 
long  since  among  the  villagers;  and  here  you  are  not 
knowing  what  to  do  with  all  your  energy." 

I  did  not  say  anything  at  the  time,  but  those  words 
of  his  produced  an  immense  impression  on  me. 
What  struck  me  most  was  not  the  implied  reproach 
for  my  idleness,  but  the  new  idea  that  I  was  really 
so  grown  up  that  it  was  "time  to  marry  me."  I  knew 
that  my  father  felt  very  earnestly  about  the  chastity 
of  young  people;  I  knew  how  much  strength  he  laid 
on  purity;  and  an  early  marriage  seemed  to  me  the 
best  solution  of  the  difficult  question  which  must 
harass  every  thoughtful  boy  when  he  attains  to  man's 
estate.     I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  when  he 

315 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

uttered  those  words,  my  father  foresaw  the  effect  they 
would  have  on  me ;  but  they  were  undoubtedly  spoken 
from  the  bottom  of  his  heart  and  that  is  why  they  left 
such  a  deep  impression  behind  them.  I  not  only 
understood  them  in  their  literal  import;  I  felt  all  the 
deep  significance  of  what  was  left  unsaid. 

•  ••••••• 

Two  or  three  years  later,  when  I  was  eighteen  and 
we  were  living  in  Moscow,  I  fell  in  love  with  a  young 
lady  I  knew, — she  is  now  my  wife, — and  went  almost 
every  Saturday  to  her  father's  house.  My  father 
knew  but  said  nothing.  One  day  when  he  was  going 
out  for  a  walk  I  asked  if  I  might  come  with  him. 
As  I  very  seldom  went  for  walks  with  him  in  Moscow 
he  guessed  that  I  wanted  to  have  a  serious  talk  with 
him  about  something,  and  after  walking  some  dis- 
tance in  silence,  evidently  feeling  that  I  was  shy 
about  it  and  did  not  like  to  break  the  ice,  he  suddenly 
began. 

"You  seem  to  go  pretty  often  to  the  F s'." 

I  said  that  I  was  very  fond  of  the  eldest  daughter. 

"What  do  you  want*?     To  marry  her'?" 

"Yes." 

"Is  she  a  good  girl?  .  .  .  Well,  mind  you  don't 
make  a  mistake;  and  don't  be  false  to  her,"  he  said 
with  a  curious  gentleness  and  thoughtfulness. 

I  left  him  at  once  and  ran  back  home,  delighted, 
along  the  Arbat.     I  was  glad  that  I  had  told  him  the 

316 


TOLSTOY,    HIS    SON    LYOF,    AND   THE    SON    OF    LYOF 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

truth ;  and  his  affectionate  and  cautious  way  of  taking 
it  strengthened  my  affection  both  for  him  to  whom 
I  was  boundlessly  grateful  for  his  depth  of  feeling; 
and  for  her,  whom  I  loved  still  more  warmly  from 
that  moment,  and  to  whom  I  resolved  still  more  fer- 
vently never  to  be  untrue. 

My  father's  tactfulness  towards  us  amounted  al- 
most to  timidity.  There  were  certain  questions 
which  he  could  never  bring  himself  to  touch  on  for 
fear  of  causing  us  pain. 

I  shall  never  forget  how  once  In  Moscow  I  found 
him  sitting  writing  at  the  table  in  my  room,  when  I 
dashed  in  suddenly  to  change  my  clothes.  My  bed 
stood  behind  a  screen  which  hid  him  from  me. 

When  he  heard  my  footsteps  he  said  without  look- 
ing round : 

"Isthatyou,  Ilya?' 

"Yes,  it 's  me." 

"Are  you  alone'?  Shut  the  door.  .  .  .  There  's 
no  one  to  hear  us  and  we  can't  see  each  other,  so  we 
shall  not  feel  ashamed.  Tell  me,  did  you  ever  have 
anything  to  do  with  women?" 

When  I  said  No,  I  suddenly  heard  him  break  out 
sobbing,  like  a  little  child. 

I  sobbed  and  cried  too,  and  for  a  long  time  we 
stayed  weeping  tears  of  joy  with  the  screen  between 
us,  and  we  were  neither  of  us  ashamed,  but  both  so 
joyful,  that  I  look  on  that  moment  as  one  of  the  hap- 

319 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

piest  in  my  whole  life.  No  arguments  or  homilies 
could  ever  have  effected  what  the  emotion  I  experi- 
enced at  that  moment  did.  Such  tears  as  those  shed 
by  a  father  of  sixty  can  never  be  forgotten  even  in 
moments  of  the  strongest  temptation. 


Between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty,  my  father 
watched  my  inner  development  most  attentively, 
noted  all  my  doubts  and  hesitations,  encouraged  me 
in  my  good  impulses,  and  often  found  fault  with  me 
for  inconsistency.  I  still  have  some  of  his  letters 
written  at  that  time.  The  first,  only  a  postcard,  was 
written  from  Yasnaya,  when  he  had  a  bad  leg,^  and 
I  and  my  brothers  Seryozha  and  Lyolya  were  living 
in  Moscow  with  Nikolai  Nikolayevitch  Gay,  the 
artist's  son. 

You  get  letters  from  here  every  day  and  of  course  you 
all  know  all  about  me.  I  write  myself  just  "to  make  sure." 
General  condition  good.  If  anything  to  complain  of  it 's 
bad  nights,  in  consequence  of  which  my  head  is  unclear 
and  I  cannot  work.  I  lie  and  listen  to  women  talking; 
am  so  lapped  in  femininity  I  begin  to  talk  of  myself  as 
"she."  ^  Am  peaceful  in  my  mind ;  sometimes  a  little  anx- 
ious about  some  of  you,  about  your  spiritual  welfare,  but 
do  not  allow  myself  to  worry,  and  wait  and  rejoice  in  the 
forward  course  of  life.     As  long  as  you  don't  undertake 

^  This  was  in  1886.  Tolstoy  had  erysipelas  from  a  neglected 
sore  on  his  leg.     Maude's  "Life." 

8  Literally:  "I  begin  to  say  Ya  spald,  I  slept,"  i.  e.,  in  the  femi- 
nine, instead  of  ya  spdl,  in  the  masculine. 

320 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

too  much,  and  live  without  doing  evil,  all  will  be  well.     I 
kiss  you  all  including  Koletchka.** 

The  next  two  letters  both  belong  to  the  same  period 
as  the  first : 

I  had  just  written  you,  my  dear  friend  Ilya,  a  letter  that 
was  true  to  my  own  feelings  but,  I  am  afraid,  unjust,  and 
I  am  not  sending  it.  I  said  unpleasant  things  in  it,  but  I 
have  no  right  to  do  so.  I  do  not  know  you  as  I  should  like 
to  and  as  I  ought  to  know  you.  That  is  my  fault,  and  I 
wish  to  remedy  it.  I  know  much  in  you  that  I  do  not  like, 
but  I  do  not  know  everything.  As  for  your  proposed  jour- 
ney home,  I  think  that  in  your  position  as  a  student — not 
only  student  of  a  Gymnase,  but  at  the  age  of  study — it  is 
better  to  gad  about  as  little  as  possible ;  moreover,  all  use- 
less expenditure  of  money  that  you  can  easily  refrain  from 
is  immoral  in  my  opinion,  and  in  yours  too  if  you  only  con- 
sider it.  If  you  come,  I  shall  be  glad  for  my  own  sake, 
so  long  as  you  are  not  inseparable  from  G. 

Do  as  you  think  best.  But  you  must  work,  both  with 
your  head,  thinking  and  reading,  and  with  your  heart,  i.e., 
find  out  for  yourself  what  is  really  good  and  what  is  bad 
although  it  seems  to  be  good,     I  kiss  you.     L.  T. 

Dear  friend  Ilyd, 

There  is  always  somebody  or  something  that  prevents  me 
from  answering  your  two  letters,  which  are  important  and 
dear  to  me,  especially  the  last.  First  it  was  Buturlin,  then 
bad  health,  insomnia,  then  the  arrival  of  D.,  the  friend  of 
H.  that  I  wrote  you  about.  He  is  sitting  at  tea  talking  to 
the  ladies,  neither  understanding  the  other;  so  I  left  them, 

9  Nikolai  Gay. 

321 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  want  to  write  what  little  I  can  find  time  to,  of  all  that 
I  have  been  thinking  about  you. 

Even  supposing  that  So  A.  demands  too  much  of  you,^** 
there  is  no  harm  in  waiting;  especially  from  the  point  of 
view  of  fortifying  your  opinions,  your  faith.  That  is  the 
one  important  thing.  If  you  don't,  it  is  a  fearful  disaster 
to  put  off  from  one  shore  and  not  reach  the  other. 

The  one  shore  is  a  good  and  honest  life,  for  your  own 
delight  and  the  profit  of  others.  But  there  is  a  bad  life 
too,  a  life  so  sugared,  so  common  to  all,  that  if  you  follow 
it  you  do  not  notice  that  it  is  a  bad  life,  and  suffer  only  in 
your  conscience,  if  you  have  one ;  but  if  you  leave  it  and 
do  not  reach  the  real  shore,  you  will  be  made  miserable  by 
solitude  and  by  the  reproach  of  having  deserted  your  fel- 
lows, and  you  will  be  ashamed.  In  short,  I  want  to  say 
that  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  want  to  be  rather  good; 
it  is  out  of  the  question  to  jump  into  the  water  unless  you 
know  how  to  swim.  One  must  be  sincere  and  wish  to  be 
good  with  all  one's  might.  Do  you  feel  this  in  you?  The 
drift  of  what  I  say  is  that  we  all  know  what  Princess  Maria 
Alexeyevna's  ^^  verdict  about  your  marriage  would  be :  that 
if  young  people  marry  without  a  sufficient  fortune  it  means 
children,  poverty,  getting  tired  of  each  other  in  a  year  or 
two,  in  ten  years,  quarrels,  want — hell.  And  in  all  this 
Princess  Maria  Alexeyevna  is  perfectly  right  and  plays  the 
true   prophet,    unless    the   young   people   who    are    getting 

i"  I  had  written  to  my  father  that  my  fiancee's  mother  would  not 
let  me  marry  for  two  years. — I.  T. 

11  My  father  took  Griboyedof's  Princess  Maria  Alexeyevna  as  a 
type. — I.  T.  The  allusion  is  to  the  last  words  of  Griboyedof's 
famous  comedy,  "The  Misfortune  of  Cleverness,"  1824.  "What  will 
Princess  Marya  Alexevna  say?"  She  is  merely  Mrs.  Grundy,  not 
a  character  in  the  play. 

322 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

married  have  another  purpose,  their  one  and  only  one,  un- 
known to  Princess  Maria  Alexeyevna,  and  that  not  a  brain- 
ish  purpose,  not  one  recognized  by  the  intellect,  but  one  that 
gives  life  its  color  and  the  attainment  of  which  is  more  mov- 
ing than  any  other.  If  you  have  this,  good ;  marry  at  once, 
and  give  the  lie  to  Princess  Maria  Alexeyevna.  If  not,  it 
is  a  hundred  to  one  that  your  marriage  will  lead  to  nothing 
but  misery.  I  am  speaking  to  you  from  the  bottom  of  my 
heart.  Receive  my  words  into  the  bottom  of  yours  and 
weigh  them  well.  Besides  love  for  you  as  a  son,  I  have 
love  for  you  also  as  a  man  standing  at  the  cross-ways.  I 
kiss  you  and  Lyolya  and  Koletchka  and  Seryozha,  if  he  is 
back.     We  are  all  alive  and  well. 

The  following  letter  belongs  to  the  same  period : 

Your  letter  to  Tanya  has  arrived,  my  dear  friend  Ilya, 
and  I  see  that  you  are  still  advancing  towards  that  purpose 
which  you  set  up  for  yourself;  and  I  want  to  write  to  you 
and  to  her — for  no  doubt  you  tell  her  everything — what  I 
think  about  it.  Well,  I  think  about  it  a  great  deal,  with 
joy  and  with  fear,  mixed.  This  is  what  I  think.  If  one 
marries  in  order  to  enjoy  oneself  more,  no  good  will  ever 
come  of  it.  To  set  up  as  one's  main  object,  ousting  every- 
thing else,  marriage,  union  with  the  being  you  love,  is  a 
great  mistake.  And  an  obvious  one,  if  you  think  about  it. 
Object,  marriage.  Well,  you  marry;  and  what  then?  If 
you  had  no  other  object  in  life  before  your  marriage,  it  will 
be  twice  as  fearfully  hard,  almost  impossible,  to  find  one. 
In  fact  you  may  be  sure,  if  you  had  no  common  purpose 
before  your  marriage,  nothing  can  bring  you  together,  you 
will  keep  getting  further  apart.  Marriage  can  never  bring 
happiness  unless  those  who  marry  have  a  common  purpose. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Two  people  meet  on  the  road  and  say,  "Let 's  walk  to- 
gether." Let  them;  they  will  go  hand  in  hand;  but  not  if 
they  hold  out  their  hands  to  each  other  and  both  turn  off  the 
road. 

In  the  first  case  it  will  be  like  this : 


Death 


In  the  second  case'. 


cord 


The  reason  of  this  is  that  the  idea  shared  by  many  that 
life  is  a  vale  of  tears  is  just  as  false  as  the  idea,  shared  by 
the  great  majority,  the  idea  to  which  youth  and  health  and 
riches  incline  you,  that  life  is  a  place  of  entertainment. 
Life  is  a  place  of  service,  and  in  that  service  one  has  to 
suffer  at  times  a  good  deal  that  is  hard  to  bear,  but  more 
often  to  experience  a  great  deal  of  joy.  But  that  joy  can 
only  be  real  if  people  look  upon  their  life  as  a  service,  and 
have  a  definite  object  in  life  outside  themselves  and  their 
personal  happiness. 

As  a  rule,  people  who  are  getting  married  completely  for- 
get this.     So  many  joyful  events  await  them  in  the  future. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

in  wedlock  and  the  arrival  of  children,  that  those  events 
seem  to  constitute  life  itself.  But  this  is  a  dangerous  illu- 
sion. 

If  parents  merely  live  from  day  to  day  begetting  chil- 
dren, and  have  no  purpose  in  life,  they  are  only  putting 
off  the  question  of  the  purpose  of  life  and  that  punishment 
which  is  allotted  to  people  who  live  without  knowing  why ; 
they  are  only  putting  it  off  and  not  escaping  it,  because  they 
will  have  to  bring  up  their  children  and  guide  their  steps, 
but  they  will  have  nothing  to  guide  them  by.  And  then  the 
parents  lose  their  human  qualities  and  the  happiness  which 
depends  on  the  possession  of  them,  and  turn  into  mere 
breeding-stock.  That  is  why  I  say  that  people  who  are 
proposing  to  marry  because  their  life  seems  to  them  to  be 
full  must  more  than  ever  set  themselves  to  think  and  make 
clear  to  their  own  minds  what  it  is  that  each  of  them  lives 
for. 

And  in  order  to  make  this  clear  you  must  consider  your 
present  circumstances  and  your  past  life ;  reckon  up  what 
you  consider  important  and  what  unimportant  in  life ; 
find  out  what  you  believe  in ;  that  is,  what  you  look  on  as 
eternal  and  immutable  truth,  and  what  you  will  take  for 
your  guide  in  life.  And  not  only  find  out,  make  clear  to 
your  own  mind,  but  try  to  practise  or  to  learn  to  practise 
in  your  daily  life,  because  until  you  practise  what  you  be- 
lieve you  cannot  tell  whether  you  believe  it  or  not. 

I  know  your  faith,  and  that  faith,  or  those  sides  of  it 
which  can  be  expressed  in  deeds,  you  must  now,  more  than 
ever,  make  clear  to  your  own  mind  by  putting  them  into 
practice.  Your  faith  is  that  your  welfare  consists  in  lov- 
ing people  and  being  loved  by  them.  For  the  attainment 
of  this  end  I  know  of  three  lines  of  action,  in  which  I  per- 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

petually  exercise  myself,  in  which  one  can  never  exercise 
oneself  enough  and  which  are  especially  necessary  to  you 
now. 

First,  in  order  to  be  able  to  love  people  and  to  be  loved  by 
them,  one  must  accustom  oneself  to  expect  as  little  as  pos- 
sible from  them,  and  that  is  very  hard  work  (for  if  I  ex- 
pect much  and  am  often  disappointed,  I  am  inclined  rather 
to  reproach  them  than  to  love  them). 

Second,  in  order  to  love  people  not  in  word  but  in  deed, 
one  must  train  oneself  to  do  what  benefits  them.  That 
needs  still  harder  work,  especially  at  your  age  when  it  is 
one's  natural  business  to  be  studying. 

Third,  in  order  to  love  people  and  to  b.l.b.t.^^  one  must 
train  oneself  to  gentleness,  humility,  the  art  of  bearing  with 
disagreeable  people  and  things,  the  art  of  behaving  to  them 
so  as  not  to  offend  any  one,  of  being  able  to  choose  the  least 
offence.  And  this  is  the  hardest  work  of  all,  work  that 
never  ceases  from  the  time  you  wake  till  the  time  you  go 
to  sleep,  and  the  most  joyful  work  of  all,  because  day  after 
day  you  rejoice  in  your  growing  success  in  it  and  receive  a 
further  reward  (unperceived  at  first  but  very  joyful  after- 
wards) in  being  loved  by  others. 

So  I  advise  you,  friend  Ilya,  and  both  of  you,  to  live  and 
to  think  as  sincerely  as  you  can,  because  it  is  the  only  way 
you  can  discover  if  you  are  really  going  along  the  same  road, 
and  whether  it  is  wise  to  join  hands  or  not;  and  at  the 
same  time,  if  you  are  sincere,  you  must  be  making  your 
future  ready.  Your  purpose  in  life  must  not  be  to  enjoy 
the  delight  of  wedlock  but,  by  your  life,  to  bring  more  love 
and  truth  into  the  world.  The  object  of  marriage  is  to  help 
one  another  in  the  attainment  of  that  purpose. 

12  Be  loved  by  them. 

326 


TOLSTOY    AND    ALEXAN'DRV 

She  wa^  her  father's  last  secretary 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

The  vilest  and  most  selfish  life  is  the  life  of  the  people 
who  have  joined  together  only  in  order  to  enjoy  life ;  and 
the  highest  vocation  in  the  world  is  that  of  those  who  live 
in  order  to  serve  God  by  bringing  good  into  the  world,  and 
who  have  joined  together  for  that  express  purpose.  Don't 
mistake  half-measures  for  the  real  thing.  Why  should  a 
man  not  choose  the  highest?  Only,  when  you  have  chosen 
the  highest,  you  must  set  your  whole  heart  on  it  and  not 
just  a  little.  Just  a  little  leads  to  nothing.  There,  I  am 
tired  of  writing  and  still  have  much  left  that  I  wanted  to 
say.     I  kiss  you. 


329 


CHAPTER  XXI 

MY  MARRIAGE.       MY  FATHER'S  LETTERS.       VAN- 
ITCHKA.       HIS    DEATH. 

IN  February,  1888,  I  married  and  went  with  my 
bride  to  Yasnaya  Polyana,  where  we  estab- 
lished ourselves  for  two  months  in  three  rooms 
on  the  ground  floor.  In  the  spring  I  was  to  move  to 
Alexander  Farm,  on  our  property  "Nikolskoye"  in 
the  Tchornski  District,  where  I  intended  to  build 
myself  a  house  and  settle.  Soon  after  my  marriage 
I  received  the  following  letter  from  my  father. 

How  are  you,  my  dear  children?  Are  you  alive?  Are 
you  alive  in  spirit?  This  is  an  important  time  that  you 
are  passing  through.  Everything  is  important  now,  every 
step  is  important;  remember  that:  your  life  together  is 
taking  shape  now,  the  life  of  your  mutual  relations,  the 
new  organism,  the  homme-femme,  one  being,  and  the  re- 
lations of  that  compound  being  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world, 
to  Marya  Afanasyevna,^  to  Kostyushka,  etc.,  and  to  the 
inanimate  world,  to  your  food,  your  clothing,  etc.  Every- 
thing is  new.  If  you  want  anything,  want  it  now.  And 
most  important  of  all,  you  will  now  have  your  moods 
of  mauvaise  humeur;  and  you  will  always  be  showing 
yourselves  off  to  one  another  in  false  colors ;  do  not  be- 
lieve  in  this;  do  not  believe  in  evil;  wait  and  all  will 

^The  servant 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

come  right  again.     I  do  not  know  about  Sonya,  but  Ilya 
is  prone  to  this  and  he  must  be  careful  about  it. 

To  you,  Sonya,  I  say  this:  you  will  suddenly  find  your- 
self bored,  oh,  so  bored,  so  bored,  so  bored.  Do  not  believe 
in  it,  do  not  give  way  to  it;  be  assured  that  it  is  not  bore- 
dom but  your  spirit's  simple  demand  for  work,  any  kind, 
manual,  intellectual,  it 's  all  the  same.  The  chief  thing, 
chiefer  than  any,  is,  be  kind  to  people,  not  kind  from  a 
distance,  but  accessible  from  near.  If  that  is  so,  life  will 
be  full  and  happy.  Well,  stick  to  it!  I  kiss  you  and  love 
you  both  dearly.  I  have  just  heard  that  Khilkof  -  is 
marrying  Dzhunkovski's  wife's  sister.     I  do  not  know  her. 

At  the  end  of  March  my  father  came  to  Yasnaya 
himself  and  stayed  there  with  us  until  we  left  for 
Nikolskoye.  We  had  nobody  but  an  old  woman, 
Marya  Afanasyevna,  in  the  house  with  us;  she  was 
very  feeble  and  was  already  pensioned  off,  so  that 
we  had  to  do  without  servants,  cook  our  own  dinner, 
fetch  water  and  do  the  rooms  ourselves. 

My  father  helped  us  as  well  as  he  could,  but  I  must 
confess,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  ex- 
tremely little  fitted  for  the  Robinson  Crusoe  life.  It 
is  true  that  he  was  not  at  all  exacting,  and  always 
vowed  that  everything  was  first  rate.  But  habit  told 
— he  had  been  accustomed  for  so  many  years  to  a 
particular  order  of  life,  a  particular  diet,  that  every 
departure  from  that  order,  even  when  he  was  only 

2  This  is  the  well-known  Prince  Khillcof  who  gave  up  his  estates 
to  his  peasants,  lived  as  a  workman,  and  helped  to  settle  the  Douk- 
hobors  in  Canada.      (Maude's  "Life.") 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

sixty,  had  a  disastrous  effect  on  his  health.  It  hap- 
pened again  and  again  that  when  he  had  gone  away 
quite  healthy  from  home  and  found  himself  in  new 
conditions,  he  came  back  ill ;  even  when  he  had  been 
staying  with  people  who  knew  all  his  habits  and 
looked  after  him  like  a  little  child. 

At  the  end  of  April  I  and  my  wife  went  to  our 
farm,  and  from  that  time  forth  I  never  lived  at 
Yasnaya  again,  but  only  went  on  short  visits,  either 
on  business,  or  simply  to  see  my  parents.  After  leav- 
ing Yasnaya  I  and  my  wife  had  the  following  letter 
from  my  father : 

Did  you  have  a  good  journey,  my  dear  friends'?  We 
are  sad  and  bored  without  you ;  that  is  to  say,  we  are  sorry 
that  you  are  no  longer  with  us.  The  enclosed  telegram 
has  come  for  you;  nothing  has  been  done  about  it.  I  ex- 
pect there  's  no  harm  in  that.  Write  how  you  have  settled 
in  and  what  your  plans  are.  My  health  is  quite  good  now. 
Our  Temperance  Society  is  having  a  great  success ;  a  num- 
ber have  signed ;  one  of  them,  Danilo,  has  found  time  to 
sign  and  get  drunk  again  since  signing.  I  am  not  at  all 
alarmed  about  it ;  but  I  wait  for  you,  Ilya,  very  anxiously, 
and  shall  be  glad  for  your  sake  when  you  give  up  those 
two  nasty  habits,  alcohol  and  tobacco,  which  are  outside 
growths  grafted  on  and  do  not  belong  to  regular  life.  Life 
is  no  joking  matter,  especially  for  you  now:  every  step  you 
take  is  important.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  good  in  you 
and  Sonya,  above  all,  purity  and  love ;  preserve  them  with 
all  your  might;  but  there  are  many,  many  dangers  that 
threaten  you  both;  you  do  not  see  them,  but  I  do,  and  I 


COUNTESS   TOLSTOY 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

am  afraid.  Well,  au  revoir,  I  kiss  you  both,  and  every  one 
sends  their  love.  Write.  Every  one  in  Moscow,  according 
to  the  last  letters,  is  making  successful  preparations  to 
hurry  home.     L.  T. 

The  following  letter  was  written  by  my  father  in 
reference  to  the  birth  of  my  first  daughter  Anna : 

I  congratulate  you,  dear  and  beloved  young  parents. 
My  congratulation  is  not  a  form  of  words;  I  was  so  unex- 
pectedly delighted  at  hearing  of  my  granddaughter  that  I 
want  to  share  my  delight  and  thank  you,  and  I  understand 
your  delight.  I  now  look  at  all  girls  and  women  with  pity 
and  contempt.  What 's  this  creature  ?  Ah,  you  should  see 
Anna;  she'll  be  the  genuine  thing!  But  joking  apart 
.  .  .  and  yet  what  I  said  was  not  a  joke ;  but  in  still  greater 
seriousness,  this  is  what  I  want  to  say:  mind  you  both 
bring  up  this  granddaughter,  or  daughter,  wisely:  don't 
make  the  mistakes  that  were  made  with  you  two,  the  mis- 
takes of  the  period.  I  believe  that  Anna  will  be  better 
brought  up,  less  cockered  and  spoilt  with  genteelness  than 
you  were.  How  is  Sonya*?  It  is  terrifying  to  be  waiting 
and  thinking  that  something  may  have  gone  wrong  after 
all.  However,  everything  will  be  all  right,  so  long  as 
everything  is  all  right  in  the  heart,  and  that  is  my  chief  wish 
to  you.  How  glad  I  am  that  Sofya  Alexeyevna  ^  is  with 
you;  kiss  her  and  congratulate  her  for  me.  I  kiss  you 
both.     L.  T. 

It  was  after  my  marriage,  in  the  spring,  that  my 
mother  had  her  youngest  son,  Vanitchka  (Ivan). 
This  child,  who  only  lived  to  be  seven  and  died  of 

3  Count  Ilya's  mother-in-law. 

335 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

scarlet  fever  in  1895,  was  the  darling  of  the  whole 
family.  My  mother  doted  on  him  and  my  father 
loved  him  as  his  youngest  son  with  all  the  strength  of 
a  father's  and  an  old  man's  heart. 

To  tell  the  truth,  my  father  had  taken  very  little 
interest  in  the  upbringing  of  the  two  preceding  chil- 
dren, my  brothers,  Andrei  and  Mikhail,  They 
reached  the  age.  for  going  to  school  when  he  was 
already  in  full  opposition  to  the  method  of  education 
which  had  been  applied  to  the  rest  of  us ;  so  that,  not 
feeling  himself  capable  of  directing  them  as  he  would 
have  liked  in  accordance  with  his  convictions,  he 
turned  his  back  on  them,  washed  his  hands  of  them, 
and  never  took  any  active  interest  in  their  life  or  their 
education.'*  My  mother  sent  them  first  of  all  to 
Polivanof's  Gymnase,  where  I  and  my  brother  Lyof 
had  been,  and  later  they  were  transferred  to  the 
Katkof  Lycee. 

I  think  my  father  regarded  Vanitchka  as  his  spir- 
itual successor  and  dreamed  of  bringing  him  up 
according  to  his  own  ideas,  in  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tian love  and  goodness.  I  knew  Vanitchka  less  than 
my  other  brothers  and  sisters,  because  I  was  already 
living  apart  while  he  was  growing  up,  but  from  what 
I  saw  of  him  I  was  struck  by  the  remarkably  aff ection- 

*  These  two  sons  took  no  interest  in  their  father's  views;  both 
went  into  the  army;  one  of  them  joined  the  Black  Hundred. 
(Maude's  "Life."X 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

ate  and  responsive  heart  that  this  physically  delicate 
and  sickly  child  had. 

Vanitchka  was  only  eighteen  months  old  when  my 
father  resolved  to  give  up  his  landed  property,  and 
divided  his  estate  between  the  members  of  the  family. 
To  Vanitchka,  as  the  youngest,  was  allotted  part  of 
Yasnaya  Polyana,  with  the  house  and  demesne.^  A 
more  distant  part  of  the  estate  was  allotted  to  my 
mother. 

My  mother  told  me,  after  Vanitchka's  death,  how 
one  day,  when  she  was  walking  in  the  garden  with 
him,  she  explained  that  all  that  land  was  hiso 

"No,  mama,  don't  say  that  Yasnaya  Polyana  is 
mine!"  he  said,  stamping  his  foot.  "Everything's 
every  oneses'." 

When  I  received  the  telegram  announcing  his 
death,  I  went  into  Moscow  at  once.  My  mother  told 
me  what  my  father  said  after  Vanitchka's  death: 
"It  is  the  first  irremediable  sorrow  of  my  life  I" 
Vanitchka  was  buried  in  the  village  churchyard  at 
Nikolskoye,  beyond  All  Saints,  not  far  from  Mos- 
cow, where  my  other  little  brother  Alyosha  had  been 
buried  before  him.  When  the  coffin  was  lowered 
into  the  grave,  my  father  sobbed  and  said  very,  very 
softly,  so  that  I  could  only  just  distinguish  the 
words : 

s  According  to  a  custom  equivalent  to  "Borough  English."  Tol- 
stoy had  himself  inherited  Yasnaya  Polyana  in  the  quality  of 
youngest  son. 

337 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"Taken  from  the  earth,  to  the  earth  thou  shalt 
return."  ® 

He  used  these  same  words  in  a  letter  to  his  brother 
Sergei  Nikolayevitch  apropos  of  his  brother  Nikolai's 
death  in  i860.  And  since  Nikolai's  death  Vanitch- 
ka's  was  the  greatest  loss  he  had  ever  known. 

It  has  often  struck  me  that  if  Vanitchka  had  lived 
many  things  in  my  father's  life  would  very  likely 
have  been  different.  This  child,  with  his  insight 
and  responsiveness,  might  have  attached  him  to  his 
family,  and  he  would  never  have  been  haunted  by 
the  thought  of  leaving  Yasnaya  Polyana.  I  am  en- 
couraged in  this  supposition  by  a  letter  which  my 
father  wrote  to  my  mother  a  year  and  a  half  after 
Vanitchka's  death. 

Here  is  the  letter,  which  I  give  in  full : 

Yasnaya  Polyana,  June  8th,  1897. 
My  dear  Sony  a, 

I  have  long  been  tormented  by  the  incongruity  between 
my  life  and  my  beliefs.  To  make  you  change  your  way 
of  life,  your  habits,  which  I  taught  you  myself,  was  impos- 
sible ;  to  leave  you  has  so  far  also  been  impossible,  for  I 
thought  that  I  should  be  depriving  the  children,  while  they 
were  still  young,  of  the  influence,  however  small,  which  I 
might  have  over  them,  and  should  be  causing  you  pain. 
But  to  continue  to  live  as  I  have  been  living  these  sixteen 
years,  at  one  time  struggling  and  harassing  you,  at  an- 

^  "Dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return." — Genesis 
iii,  19. 

338 


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as 


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I/; 


X 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

other  yielding  to  those  influences  and  temptations  to  which 
I  was  accustomed  and  by  which  I  was  surrounded,  has  also 
become  impossible  for  me  at  last;  and  I  have  now  made 
up  my  mind  to  do  what  I  have  long  wished  to  do,  to  go 
away ;  first,  because  with  my  advancing  years  this  life  grows 
more  and  more  burdensome  to  me  and  I  long  more  and  more 
for  solitude ;  and  secondly,  because  the  children  have  now 
grown  up,  my  influence  is  no  longer  necessary  and  you  all 
have  livelier  interests,  which  will  make  you  notice  my  ab- 
sence less. 

But  the  chief  reason  is,  that  as  the  Hindus  when  they 
near  the  sixties  retire  into  the  forests,  as  every  religious  old 
man  desires  to  dedicate  the  last  years  of  his  life  to  God 
and  not  to  jokes,  puns,  gossip,  and  lawn  tennis,  so  I,  who  am 
now  entering  on  my  seventieth  year,  long,  with  all  the 
strength  of  my  spirit,  for  that  tranquillity  and  solitude  and, 
though  not  perfect  accord,  still  something  better  than  this 
crying  discord  between  my  life  and  my  beliefs  and  con- 
science. 

If  I  did  this  openly,  I  should  be  met  with  entreaties,  re- 
proaches, and  arguments,  and  perhaps  I  should  falter  and 
fail  to  carry  out  my  resolution,  and  it  has  got  to  be  carried 
out.  Please  forgive  me  therefore  if  this  step  that  I  am 
taking  causes  you  pain ;  and  in  your  heart,  Sonya,  above  all, 
let  me  go  of  your  own  free  will,  do  not  seek  for  me,  do  not 
find  fault  with  me,  do  not  condemn  me. 

My  leaving  you  does  not  mean  that  I  am  dissatisfied  with 
youo  I  know  that  you  could  not,  literally  could  not,  and 
cannot,  see  and  feel  as  I  do,  and  therefore  you  could  not 
and  cannot  alter  your  life  and  make  sacrifices  for  the  sake 
of  what  you  do  not  believe  in.  I  do  not  find  fault  with 
you;  on  the  contrary  I  recall,  with  love  and  gratitude,  the 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

long  thirty-five  years  of  our  life  together,  especially  the  first 
half  of  it,  when,  with  that  maternal  self-renunciation  which 
is  characteristic  of  you,  you  bore,  so  zealously  and  patiently, 
with  what  you  thought  was  your  appointed  burden.  You 
gave  me  and  the  world  what  you  were  able  to  give.  You 
gave  much  maternal  love  and  self-sacrifice,  and  I  cannot 
but  esteem  you  for  that.  But  during  the  latter  period  of 
our  life,  during  the  last  fifteen  years,  we  have  fallen  away 
from  one  another.  I  can  believe  that  I  am  to  blame,  be- 
cause I  know  that  I  have  changed,  not  for  my  own  sake 
or  for  the  sake  of  other  people's  opinion,  but  because  I  could 
not  help  it.  And  I  cannot  blame  you  for  not  having  fol- 
lowed me,  but  I  thank  you  and  I  lovingly  recall  and  always 
shall  recall  all  that  you  have  given  me.  Good-by,  dear 
Sonya. 

Your  loving 

Lyof  Tolstoy. 

On  the  envelope  was  written:  "If  I  make  no 
special  resolution  about  this  letter,  it  is  to  be  handed 
to  S.  A."^  after  my  death," 

This  letter  did  not  come  to  my  mother's  hands  till 
after  my  father's  death.  Later,  perhaps,  I  shall  re- 
turn to  this  most  important  document,  which  explains 
many  questions  which  are  beyond  the  comprehension 
of  most.  I  have  quoted  it  here  in  connection  with 
Vanitchka's  death,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  there 
is  an  undoubted  inner  connection  between  the  two 
things.  The  idea  of  leaving  home  cannot  have  oc- 
curred to  my  father  immediately  after  the  death  of 

'  Sofya  Andreyevna,  the  Countess. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

his  son,  for  at  that  time,  he  fully  shared  with  my 
mother  the  "fearfully  overwrought  condition  of 
mind"  in  which  she  was. 

This  is  what  he  wrote  on  that  subject: 

Now  that  she  is  suffering  I  feel  more  than  ever,  with  all 
my  being,  the  truth  of  the  words  that  man  and  wife  are  not 
separate  individuals  but  one.  ...  I  long  intensely  to  instil 
into  her  even  a  portion  of  that  religious  consciousness  which 
I  have — although  in  a  slight  degree,  but  still  enough  to 
give  me  the  power  of  rising  at  times  above  the  sorrows  of 
life — because  I  know  that  nothing  but  that,  the  conscious- 
ness of  God  and  of  being  his  son  can  give  life,  and  I 
hope  that  it  may  be  instilled  into  her,  not  by  me  of  course, 
but  by  God.  Though  it  is  very  hard  for  that  consciousness 
to  be  awakened  in  women. 

A  year  and  a  half  later,  when  the  sharpness  of  my 
mother's  sorrow  was  beginning  to  pass,  my  father  felt 
himself  morally  freer  and  wrote  the  farewell  letter 
I  have  quoted. 


343 


CHAPTER  XXII 

HELP    FOR   THE    FAMINE-STRICKEN 

AFTER  the  Moscow  Census,  after  my  father 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  not 
only  useless  to  help  people  with  money,  but 
immoral,  the  part  he  took  in  distributing  food  among 
the  peasants  during  the  famines  of  1890,  1891,  and 
1 898  may  seem  to  have  shown  inconsistency  and  con- 
tradiction ol  thought. 

"If  a  horseman  sees  that  his  horse  is  tired  out,  he 
must  not  remain  seated  on  its  back  and  hold  up  its 
head,  but  simply  get  off,"  he  used  to  say,  condemning 
all  the  charities  of  the  well-fed  people  who  sit  on 
the  back  of  the  working-classes,  continue  to  enjoy  all 
the  benefits  of  their  privileged  position  and  merely 
give  from  their  superfluity.  He  did  not  believe  in 
the  good  of  such  charity  and  considered  it  a  form  of 
self-hallucination,  all  the  more  harmful,  because 
people  thereby  acquire  a  sort  of  moral  right  to  con- 
tinue their  idle  aristocratic  life  and  go  on  increasing 
the  poverty  of  the  people. 

In  the  autumn  of  1890  my  father  thought  of 
writing  an  article  on  the  famine  which  had  then 

344 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

spread  over  nearly  all  Russia.  Although  he  already 
knew  the  extent  of  the  peasantry's  disaster  through 
the  newspapers  and  the  accounts  brought  by  those 
who  came  from  the  famine-stricken  parts,  never- 
theless, when  his  old  friend  Ivan  Ivanovitch 
Rayevski  called  on  him  at  Yasnaya  Polyana  and 
proposed  that  he  should  drive  through  to  the  Dankov- 
ski  District  with  him  in  order  to  see  the  state  of  things 
in  the  villages  for  himself,  he  readily  agreed  and  went 
with  him  to  his  property  at  Begi'tchevka.  He  went 
there  with  the  intention  of  staying  only  a  day  or 
two;  but  when  he  saw  what  a  call  there  was  for 
immediate  measures,  he  at  once  set  to  work  to  help 
Rayevski,  who  had  already  instituted  several  kitchens 
in  the  villages,  in  relieving  the  distress  of  the  peas- 
antry, at  first  on  a  small  scale  and  then,  when  big 
subscriptions  began  to  pour  in  from  every  side,  on  a 
continually  increasing  one.  The  upshot  of  it  was 
that  he  devoted  two  whole  years  of  his  life  to  the 
work. 

It  is  wrong  to  think  that  my  father  showed  any 
inconsistency  in  this  matter.  He  did  not  delude 
himself  for  a  moment  into  thinking  he  was  engaged 
on  a  virtuous  and  epoch-making  task,  but  when  he 
saw  the  sufferings  of  the  people  he  simply  could  not 
bear  to  stay  comfortably  at  Yasnaya  or  in  Moscow 
any  longer,  but  had  to  go  out  and  help  in  order  to 
relieve  his  own  feelings. 

345 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

"There  is  much  about  it  that  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be ; 
there  is  S.  A.'s  money  ^  and  the  subscriptions,  there  is  the 
relation  of  those  who  feed  and  those  who  are  fed.  There 
is  sin  without  end,  but  I  cannot  stay  at  home  and  write.  I 
feel  the  necessity  of  taking  part  in  it,  of  doing  something," 
he  wrote  from  the  Province  of  Ryazan  to  Nikolai  Niko- 
layevitch  Gay. 

At  the  very  outset  of  his  work  at  Begitchevka  he 
suffered  a  great  sorrow.  In  November,  Ivan  Ivan- 
ovitch  Rayevski,  who  traveled  constantly  about 
on  business  connected  with  the  famine,  sometimes  to 
Zemstvo  meetings,  sometimes  among  the  hamlets 
and  villages,  caught  cold,  took  a  severe  influenza 
and  died.  This  loss,  it  seems  to  me,  imposed  on  my 
father  a  moral  obligation  to  continue  the  work  he 
had  begun  and  carry  it  through  to  the  end.  Ra- 
yevski was  one  of  my  father's  oldest  friends.  He 
once  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  strong  man 
and  I  believe  he  made  my  father's  acquaintance  in 
Moscow  when  they  both  went  in  for  physical  culture 
and  attended  Poiret  the  Frenchman's  Gymnastic 
School.  I  remember  him  very  far  back,  from  my  ear- 
liest childhood,  when  he  used  to  visit  Yasnaya  Poly- 
ana  and  when  he  was  united  to  my  father  by  sporting 
interests  such  as  coursing  and  race  horses.  This  was 
in  the  seventies.  Later,  when  my  father  had  quite 
given  up  his  former  hobbies,  his  friendship  with  Ivan 
1  His  wife's. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Ivanovitch  still  continued,  and  I  think  they  were 
never  such  close  friends  as  during  the  short  space  of 
time  when  they  were  drawn  together  by  the  general 
distress  and  their  joint  work  in  coping  with  it.  Ra- 
yevski  put  all  his  heart  into  the  business,  and  with 
his  great  practicalness  and  the  devoted  energy  with 
which  he  set  about  it,  he  was  an  ideal  fellow- worker 
and  comrade  for  my  father. 

That  winter,  owing  to  bad  health  I  think,  my 
father  had  to  leave  Begitchevka  for  a  couple  of 
months  and  asked  me  to  take  his  place  in  the  mean- 
time. I  got  ready  to  go  at  once,  handed  over  the 
management  of  the  famine-relief  in  the  Tchornski 
District  to  my  wife  and  started  for  Begitchevka. 
The  work  established  there  by  my  father  was  on  a 
truly  stupendous  scale. 

I  found  only  one  assistant  of  his  on  the  spot,  a 
Miss  P.,  a  woman  of  splendid  energy,  with  whom 
I  worked  all  the  time.  After  a  time  I  got  the  fol- 
lowing letter  from  my  father;  it  was  brought  by  a 
young  lady  whom  he  sent  to  help  us. 

Dear  friend  Ilyusha, 

This  letter  will  be  brought  you  by  Miss  V.,  a  girl  who 
knows  how  to  work.  Let  her  act  as  your  assistant  for  the 
time  being;  after  the  20th  when  we  arrive  we  will  make 
some  other  arrangement  about  her.  I  am  very  sorry  I  did 
not  write  to  you  to  come  and  see  me  at  home  first,  so  as  to 
talk  everything  over  with  you.  I  am  very  much  afraid 
that  from  ignorance  of  the  conditions  you  may  make  a  lot 

347 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  mistakes.  There  is  so  much  that  I  ought  to  say  that 
I  do  not  even  try  to  say  it,  especially  as  I  do  not  know  what 
you  are  doing. 

One  thing  I  beg:  be  as  careful  as  you  can,  carry  things 
out  without  altering  my  plans.  And  above  all  take  care 
about  the  purchase  and  carriage  of  the  corn  that  comes,  and 
its  regular  disposal  in  the  granaries,  and  see  that  you  do  not 
let  people  into  the  kitchens  who  can  feed  themselves  on  what 
they  get  from  the  Zemstvo,  and  on  the  other  hand  do  not 
turn  away  those  who  are  really  in  need. 

It  is  time  to  help  the  poorest  with  firing.  This  is  a  very 
important  and  difficult  job;  and  in  this  case,  however  un- 
desirable, it  is  better  that  those  who  do  not  need  it  should 
get  it  than  that  those  who  do  should  not. 

What  about  the  hay  from  Usof  ?  I  am  afraid  of  Yermo- 
layef  making  a  hash  of  it.  They  mention  scattered  trusses. 
It  must  be  picked  up  at  once  and  sent  to  Lebedef  at  Kolodezi. 
Look  out  for  potatoes  in  private  stores ;  see  if  they  won't 
sell ;  and  buy  them.  There  is  much  more  to  say  but  I  can- 
not settle  it  by  correspondence,  not  knowing  how  things  are 
going.  I  rely  on  you.  Please  do  all  you  can.  I  kiss  you. 
Give  my  compliments  to  Elena  Mikhailovna  and  Natasha 
and  every  one  there.     L.  T. 

The  "helper"  who  brought  me  this  letter  drove  in 
from  the  station  just  as  I  and  Miss  P.  were  sitting 
down  to  supper.  The  old  carpenter  who  acted  as  our 
manservant  threw  open  the  door  and  said:  "The 
Lord  has  sent  another  young  lady."  And  in  walked 
a  University  girl  with  a  big  bottle  of  Montpassiers 
under  her  arm  and  handed  me  my  father's  letter. 

348 


TOLbTOV    VISITING    THE    WOMEN  S    SECTION    OF    THE    PSYCHIATRIC    HOSPITAL 

AT    POKROF 


AMONG    THE   PATIENTS    AND    DOCTORS     AT    THE     TROITSA     DISTRICT,    PSYCHIA- 
TRIC   HOSPITAL 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

I  offered  her  a  chair  and  asked  her  to  have  some 
supper. 

There  was  salted  cabbage  with  quass,  and  black 
bread  on  the  table. 

The  unhappy  Muscovitess  took  a  look  at  it,  swal- 
lowed a  couple  of  spoonfuls  and  fell  into  a  plaintive 
silence,  looking  tenderly  at  her  sweetmeats,  as  who 
should  say :  'T  'm  in  the  famine  district  now ; 
there  's  nothing  but  cabbage  to  be  had.  What  ever 
would  have  happened  if  I  had  n't  been  bright  enough 
to  bring  my  caramels  with  me?" 

When  the  cutlets  came  in,  she  beamed  with  de- 
light. 

The  next  day  at  dawn  she  asked  to  be  given  some 
work.  I  gave  orders  to  put  in  a  horse  for  her  and 
asked  her  to  drive  to  the  village  of  Gai  with  a  coach- 
man and  make  a  list  of  all  who  were  being  relieved 
at  the  public  kitchen. 

Half  an  hour  later  in  rushed  Dmitry  Ivanovitch 
Rayevski,  brother  of  Ivan  Ivanovitch,  all  covered 
with  snow,  and  ejaculated  in  a  terrified  voice: 

"What  have  I  seen*?  There  's  a  blizzard  outside ; 
and  a  child  standing  in  a  sledge,  whirling  across 
country  all  alone.  It 's  one  of  the  horses  from  here. 
Who  is  it?' 

I  simply  gasped.  The  girl  had  gone  off  without 
a  coachman.  Heaven  knows  where,  I  had  to  send 
a  man  to  look  for  her,  and  bring  her  home. 

351 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Another  day,  as  I  left  the  house,  I  told  her  to  dis- 
tribute the  firewood  for  the  kitchens.^  All  our  own 
firewood  was  damp,  being  freshly  cut,  and  we  had 
dry  birch-wood  sent  by  rail  from  the  Province  of 
Kaluga  expressly  as  kindling.  This  wood  was  very 
expensive  and  we  set  enormous  store  by  it.  For 
every  two  cords  of  firewood  we  allowed  only  three 
cubic  feet  of  dry  logs.  I  explained  all  this  to  the 
young  lady  before  I  went  out. 

When  I  got  back,  I  found  to  my  horror,  that  she 
had  given  out  all  the  dry  wood.  "They  asked  for 
dry,"  she  explained  in  justification. 

"But  what  are  we  to  do  now  with  our  green  wood"? 
It  won't  bum  without  kindling." 

We  had  to  look  about  and  buy  dry  wood  again 
and  pay  three  times  the  former  price  for  it. 

When  my  father  returned  to  Begi'tchevka,  I  stayed 
with  him  for  a  time  and  then  went  back  home. 

Six  years  later  I  worked  again  at  the  same  job  with 
my  father,  in  the  Tchornski  and  Mtsenski  districts. 
After  the  bad  crops  of  the  two  preceding  years  it 
became  clear  by  the  beginning  of  the  winter  of  1898 
that  a  new  famine  was  approaching  in  our  neighbor- 
hood and  that  charitable  assistance  to  the  peasantry 
would  be  needed.  I  turned  to  my  father  for  help. 
By  the  spring  he  had  managed  to  collect  some  money 

2  The  ovens  being  heated  with  wood,  not  coal. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

and  at  the  beginning  of  April  he  came  himself  to  see 
me. 

I  must  tell  you  that  my  father,  who  was  very  eco- 
nomical by  nature,  was  extraordinarily  cautious  and 
I  may  say  even  parsimonious  in  the  administration  of 
charitable  funds.  It  is  easily  understood,  if  one  con- 
siders the  unlimited  confidence  which  he  enjoyed 
among  the  subscribers  and  the  great  moral  responsi- 
bility which  he  could  not  but  feel  towards  them. 
So  that  before  undertaking  anything  he  had  to 
be  fully  convinced  himself  of  the  necessity  of 
help. 

The  day  after  his  arrival,  we  saddled  a  couple  of 
horses  and  rode  out.  We  rode  as  we  had  ridden 
together  twenty  years  before,  when  we  went  out 
coursing  with  the  greyhounds,  that  is  across  country, 
over  the  fields.  It  was  all  the  same  to  me  which  way 
we  rode,  as  I  believed  that  all  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages were  equally  distressed,  and  my  father,  for  the 
sake  of  old  memories,  wanted  to  revisit  Spasskoye 
Lyutovinovo,  which  was  only  six  miles  from  my 
house;  he  had  not  been  there  since  Turgenyef's  death. 
On  the  way  I  remember  his  telling  me  all  about 
Turgenyef's  mother,  who  was  famous  through  all  the 
neighborhood  for  her  remarkable  intelligence,  energy, 
and  eccentricity.^     I  do  not  know  if  he  ever  saw  her 

3  Ruling  5,000  serfs  like  a  mad  thing,  drunk  with  power,  after  her 
husband's  death,,  with  perpetual   punishments  and  beatings. 

.   353 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

himself,  or  whether  he  was  only  telling  me  the  reports 
that  he  had  heard. 

As  we  rode  across  Turgenyef's  park  he  recalled  in 
passing  how  of  old  he  and  Ivan  Sergeyevitch  had 
disputed  which  park  was  the  finer,  Spasskoye  or 
Yasnaya  Polyana.     I  asked  him : 

"And  now  which  do  you  think*?" 

"Yasnaya  Polyana  is  the  best;  though  this  is  very 
fine,  very  fine  indeed." 

In  the  village  we  visited  the  head  man's  and  two  or 
three  other  cottages,  and  came  away  disappointed. 
There  was  no  famine.  The  peasants,  who  had  been 
endowed  at  the  Emancipation  with  a  full  share  of 
good  land,  and  had  enriched  themselves  since  by 
wage-earnings,  were  hardly  in  want  at  all.  It  is  true 
that  some  of  the  yards  were  badly  stocked;  but  there 
was  none  of  that  acute  degree  of  want  which  amounts 
to  famine  and  which  strikes  the  eye  at  once.  I  even 
remember  my  father  reproaching  me  a  little  for  hav- 
ing sounded  the  alarm  when  there  was  no  sufficient 
cause  for  it,  and  for  a  little  while  I  felt  rather 
ashamed  and  awkward  before  him. 

Of  course  when  he  talked  to  the  peasants  he  asked 
each  of  them  if  he  remembered  Turgenyef  and 
eagerly  picked  up  anything  they  had  to  say  about 
him.  Some  of  the  old  men  remembered  him  and 
spoke  of  him  with  great  affection. 

Then  we  left  Spasskoye.     A  mile  and   a  half 

354 


TOLSTOY    AND    DR.    MAKOVICKV,    HIS    IMIVSICIAN    AND    FRIEND 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

further  on  we  struck  on  a  little  hamlet  called  Pogi- 
belka/  lying  neglected  and  forgotten  among  the 
fields.  We  rode  into  it.  The  peasants  here  told  us 
that  they  had  received  a  "beggarly"  share  of  the  land 
at  the  division;  it  was  inconveniently  situated,  some 
little  way  off;  and  when  this  spring  arrived,  things 
had  come  to  such  a  pitch  that  all  the  eight  yards 
together  had  only  one  cow  and  two  horses  between 
them.  The  rest  of  their  cattle  they  had  sold.  Big 
and  little  they  all  went  about  begging.  The  next 
hamlet,  Great  Gubaryovka,  was  just  as  bad. 
Further  on,  it  was  still  worse. 

We  resolved  to  open  kitchens  without  delay.  We 
soon  had  our  hands  full.  The  hardest  work  of  all, 
the  finding  out  the  number  of  mouths  to  be  fed  in 
each  family,  my  father  did  almost  entirely  himself, 
and  spent  the  whole' day  at  it,  often  till  late  at  night, 
riding  about  the  villages.  The  preparation  and  dis- 
tribution of  provisions  was  undertaken  by  my  wife. 
Others  came  and  helped.  In  a  week  we  had  about  a 
dozen  kitchens  going  in  the  Mtsenski  District  and 
the  same  in  Tchomski.  As  it  was  beyond  the  means 
at  our  disposal  to  feed  all  the  villagers  without  dis- 
tinction, we  admitted  for  the  most  part  the  children, 
old  men  and  women,  and  the  sick  to  the  kitchens,  and 
I  well  remember  how  my  father  delighted  in  arriving 
in  a  village  at  the  dinner-hour,  and  how  touched  he 

*The  name  has  an  ominous  ring:  from  pogibel,  destruction. 

357 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

was  by  the  reverential,  almost  prayerful  attitude 
towards  the  food,  which  he  noticed  in  those  who  were 
fed  there. 

Unfortunately  we  did  not  manage  to  avoid  diffi- 
culties with  the  authorities.  The  first  thing  that 
happened  was  that  two  young  ladies  who  had  come 
from  Moscow  and  managed  one  of  our  big  kitchens 
were  simply  turned  out,  under  threat  of  closing  the 
kitchen.  Then  the  chief  constable  of  the  Hundred 
came  and  demanded  to  be  shown  the  permit  from  the 
head  of  the  Provincial  police  to  open  kitchens.  I 
argued  with  him  that  there  could  not  be  any  law  for- 
bidding charity.     Of  course  it  was  no  use. 

At  that  moment  my  father  came  into  the  room  and 
he  and  the  chief  constable  had  a  friendly  talk,  the 
one  arguing  that  people  cannot  be  forbidden  to  eat, 
and  the  other  asking  him  to  put  himself  in  the  place 
of  a  man  under  authority  who  has  orders  from  those 
above  him  to  obey. 

"What  would  you  have  me  do,  Your  Excellency?" 

"It's  very  simple;  don't  work  in  a  service  where 
you  can  be  made  to  act  against  your  conscience." 

After  that,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  the  work  going, 
I  had  to  go  and  see  the  Governors  of  Oryol  and  Tula 
Provinces  and  finally  send  a  telegram  to  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior  begging  him  "to  remove  obstacles  put 
by  local  authorities  in  way  of  private  charity  not  for- 
bidden by  law."     In  this  way  we  succeeded  in  saving 

358 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

the  kitchens  already  set  up,  but  we  were  not  allowed 
to  open  fresh  ones.  My  father  left  my  house  to  go 
to  the  eastern  parts  of  the  Tchornski  District,  where 
he  wanted  to  see  how  the  young  crops  were  doing; 
but  he  fell  ill  on  the  way  and  spent  some  days  in  bed 
at  the  house  of  my  friends,  the  Levitskis.  This  is  a 
letter  he  wrote  to  me  and  my  wife  after  his  departure. 

My  dear  friends  Sonya  and  Ilyd, 

Please  go  on  with  the  work  as  you  have  begun  it  and 
enlarge  it  if  there  is  any  real  necessity.  I  can  send  you 
another  £30.  I  am  keeping  £150  in  reserve,  as  I  wrote  to 
the  subscribers,  and  £200  has  not  yet  come.  I  have  sent 
off  my  article  and  account  of  expenditure  of  some  £300  odd. 
Total  expenses  shown  to  date,  about  £2,500.  Please,  Ilyu- 
sha,  send  me  a  detailed  account  of  the  rest  of  the  money 
spent,  so  that  I  may  send  it  to  the  papers.  My  visit  to  you 
has  left  a  delightful  impression.  I  have  come  to  know 
you  both  better,  understand  you  and  love  you.  My  health 
is  better,  but  I  cannot  say  that  it  is  good.  Am  very  weak 
still.  L.  T. 

Many  kisses  to  Annotchka  and  my  dear  grandchildren. 
Which  of  them  have  gone  to  Granny's? 


359 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

MY    father's   illness   IN   THE   CRIMEA.       ATTITUDE 
TOWARDS    DEATH.       DESIRE    FOR    SUFFER- 
ING.       MY    mother's   ILLNESS. 

IN  the  autumn  of  1901  my  father  was  attacked 
by  persistent  feverishness  and  the  doctors  ad- 
vised him  to  spend  the  winter  in  the  Crimea. 
The  Countess  Panina  kindly  lent  him  her  villa 
"Gaspra"  near  Korei'z  and  he  spent  the  winter  there. 
Soon  after  his  arrival  he  caught  cold  and  had  two 
illnesses  one  after  the  other,  enteric  fever  and  inflam- 
mation of  the  lungs.  At  one  time  his  condition  was 
so  bad  that  the  doctors  had  hardly  any  hope  that  he 
would  ever  rise  from  his  bed  again.  Although  his 
temperature  was  very  high,  he  was  conscious  all  the 
time;  he  dictated  some  reflections  every  day,  and 
deliberately  prepared  for  death.  The  whole  family 
was  with  him  and  we  all  took  turns  in  nursing  him. 
I  look  back  with  pleasure  on  the  nights  when  it  fell  to 
me  to  be  on  duty  by  him,  and  I  sat  in  the  balcony 
by  the  open  window,  listening  to  his  breathing  and 
to  every  sound  in  his  room.  My  chief  duty,  as  the 
strongest  of  the  family,  was  to  lift  him  up  while  the 

360 


tn 

o 

Q 

s 

U 

w 

H 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

sheets  were  being  changed.  When  they  were  making 
the  bed  I  had  to  hold  him  in  my  arms  like  a  child. 
I  remember  how  my  muscles  quivered  one  day  with 
the  exertion.  He  looked  at  me  with  astonishment 
and  said: 

"You  surely  don't  find  me  heavy?  .  .  .  What 
nonsense !" 

I  thought  of  that  day  when  he  had  given  me  such 
a  bad  time  out  riding  in  the  woods  as  a  boy  and  kept 
asking:  "You're  not  tired?" 

Another  time,  during  the  same  illness,  he  wanted 
me  to  carry  him  downstairs  in  my  arms  by  the  wind- 
ing stone  staircase. 

"Pick  me  up  like  they  do  a  baby  and  carry  me." 

He  had  not  a  grain  of  fear  that  I  might  stumble 
and  kill  him.  It  was  all  I  could  do  to  insist  on 
his  being  carried  down  in  an  arm-chair  by  three  of 
us. 

Was  my  father  afraid  of  death?  It  is  impossible 
to  answer  the  question  in  one  word.  With  his  tough 
constitution  and  physical  strength  he  always  instinc- 
tively fought  not  only  against  death,  but  against  old 
age.  Till  the  last  year  of  his  life  he  never  gave  in, 
but  always  did  everything  for  himself  and  even  rode 
on  horseback. 

It  is  absurd  therefore  to  suppose  that  he  had  no 
fear  of  death.  It  was  instinctive  with  him  and 
highly  developed;  but  he  always  fought  it  down. 

363 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Did  he  succeed?     I  can  answer  definitely,  yes. 

During  his  illness  he  talked  a  great  deal  of  death 
and  prepared  himself  for  it  firmly  and  deliberately. 
When  he  felt  that  he  was  getting  weaker  he  wished 
to  say  good-by  to  everybody,  and  called  us  all  sep- 
arately to  his  bedside,  one  after  the  other,  and  gave 
his  last  words  of  advice  to  each.  He  was  so  weak 
that  he  spoke  in  a  half  whisper  and  when  he  had  said 
good-by  to  one  he  had  to  rest  a  while  and  collect  his 
strength  for  the  next. 

When  my  turn  came  he  said  as  nearly  as  I  can 
remember:  "You  are  still  young  and  strong  and 
tossed  by  storms  of  passion.  You  have  not  yet  had 
time  to  think  over  the  chief  questions  of  life.  But 
this  stage  will  pass.  I  am  sure  of  it.  When  the  time 
comes,  believe  me,  you  will  find  the  truth  in  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Gospel.  I  am  dying  peacefully  now, 
because  I  have  come  to  know  that  teaching  and 
believe  in  it.  May  God  grant  you  this  knowledge 
soon.     Good-by." 

I  kissed  his  hand  and  left  the  room  quietly. 
When  I  got  to  the  front  door  I  rushed  to  a  lonely 
stone  tower  and  there  sobbed  my  heart  out  in  the 
darkness  like  a  child.  .  .  .  Looking  round  at  last 
I  saw  that  some  one  else  was  sitting  on  the  staircase 
near  me  also  crying.  So  I  said  farewell  to  my  father 
years  before  his  death  and  the  memory  of  it  is  dear 
to  me,  for  I  know  that  if  I  had  seen  him  when  he 

364 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

lay  dying  at  Astapovo  he  would  have  said  just  the 
same  to  me. 

To  return  to  the  question  of  death,  I  will  say  that 
so  far  from  being  afraid  of  death,  in  his  last  days  he 
often  desired  it;  he  was  more  interested  in  it  than 
afraid  of  it.  This  "greatest  of  mysteries"  fascinated 
him  to  such  a  degree,  that  his  interest  came  near  to 
love.  How  eagerly  he  listened  to  accounts  of  the 
death  of  his  friends,  Turgenyef,  Gay,  Leskof,^ 
Zhemtchuzhnikof,^  and  others!  He  inquired  after 
the  smallest  minutise;  no  detail,  however  trifling  in 
appearance,  was  without  its  interest  and  importance 
for  him.  In  his  "Circle  of  Reading,"  November  7th, 
the  day  he  died  on,  is  devoted  entirely  to  thoughts  on 
death.  "Life  is  a  dream,  death  is  an  awakening," 
he  wrote,  while  in  expectation  of  that  awakening. 

Apropos  of  the  "Circle  of  Reading"  I  cannot  re- 
frain from  relating  a  characteristic  incident  which  I 
was  told  by  one  of  my  sisters. 

When  my  father  made  up  his  mind  to  compile  the 
collection  of  the  sayings  of  the  wise,  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  "Circle  of  Reading,"  he  told  one  of  his 
friends  about  it.  A  few  days  afterwards  this 
"friend"  came  to  see  him  again  and  at  once  said  that 
he  and  his  wife  had  been  thinking  over  my  father's 
scheme  for  the  new  book  and  had  come  to  the  con- 

lA  novelist,  d.  1895.  Some  of  his  stories  are  to  be  found  in 
Beatrix  Tollemache's  "Russian  Sketches,"  191 3. 

2  One  of  the  authors  of  the  "Junker  Schmidt"  collection., 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

elusion  that  he  ought  to  call  it  'Tor  Every  Day" 
instead  of  "Circle  of  Reading."  To  this  my  father 
replied  that  he  preferred  the  title  "Circle  of  Read- 
ing," because  the  word  "Circle"  suggested  the  idea 
of  the  continuity  of  the  reading,  which  was  what  he 
meant  to  express  by  the  title.  Half  an  hour  later  the 
"friend"  came  across  the  room  to  him  and  repeated 
exactly  the  same  remark  again.  This  time  my  father 
made  no  reply.  In  the  evening  when  the  "friend" 
was  preparing  to  go  home,  as  he  was  saying  good-by 
to  my  father,  he  held  his  hand  in  his  and  began  once 
more:  "Still  I  must  tell  you,  Lyof  Nikolayevitch, 
that  I  and  my  wife  have  been  thinking  it  over  and 
we  have  come  to  the  conclusion,"  and  so  on,  word  for 
word  as  before. 

"No,  no,  I  want  to  die,  to  die  as  soon  as  possible," 
groaned  my  father,  when  he  had  seen  the  "friend" 
off.  "Is  n't  it  all  the  same,  whether  it 's  'Circle  of 
Reading*  or  'For  Every  Day'  ?  No,  it 's  time  for  me 
to  die ;  I  cannot  live  like  this  any  longer." 

And  in  the  end,  one  of  the  editions  of  the  sayings 
of  the  wise  actually  was  called  "For  Every  Day"  in- 
stead of  "Circle  of  Reading." 

"Ah,  my  dear,  ever  since  this  Mr. turned  up, 

I  really  don't  know  which  of  Lyof  Nikolayevitch's 
writings  are  by  Lyof  Nikolayevitch,  and  which  are 

by  Mr.  1"  murmured  our  honest-hearted  old 

366 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

friend,  Marya  Alexdndrovna  Schmidt,"  whom  cer- 
tainly no  one  who  knew  her  will  suspect  of  malice. 

This  sort  of  intrusion  into  my  father's  work  as  an 
author  bore,  in  the  "friend's"  language,  the  modest 
title  of  "corrections  beforehand"  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  Marya  Alexdndrovna  was  right,  for  no 
one  will  ever  know  where  what  my  father  wrote  ends 
and  where  his  concessions  to  Mr.  — — 's  persistent 
"corrections  beforehand"  begin,  all  the  more  as  this 
careful  adviser  had  the  forethought  to  arrange  that 
when  my  father  answered  his  letters  he  was  always 
to  return  him  the  letters  they  were  answers  to.* 

Besides  the  desire  for  death  which  my  father  dis- 
played, in  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  cherished  an- 
other dream  which  he  made  no  secret  of  his  hope  of 
realizing,  and  that  was  the  desire  to  suffer  for  his  con- 
victions. The  first  impulse  in  this  direction  was 
given  him  by  the  persecution  to  which,  during  his  life- 
time, so  many  of  his  friends  and  fellow-thinkers 
were  subjected  at  the  hands  of  the  authorities. 
When  he  heard  of  any  one  being  put  in  jail  or  de- 

3  A  schoolmistress  from  St.  Petersburg  who  became  a  fast  friend 
of  the  Tolstoys,  adopted  the  peasant  life,  and  settled  near  Yasnaya. 
(Maude's  "Life.") 

*  The  curious  may  be  disposed  to  trace  to  some  such  "corrections 
beforehand,"  the  remarkable  discrepancy  of  style  and  matter  which 
distinguishes  some  of  Tolstoy's  later  works,  published  after  his 
death  by  Mr.  Tchertkof  and  his  literary  executors,  from  his  earlier 
works. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

ported  for  disseminating  his  writings,  one  felt  sorry 
for  him,  he  was  so  distressed  about  it. 

I  remember  my  arrival  at  Yasnaya  some  days  after 
Gusef's  arrest.^  I  stayed  two  days  with  my  father 
and  heard  of  nothing  but  Gusef.  As  if  there  were 
nobody  in  the  world  but  Gusef  I  I  must  confess 
that,  sorry  as  I  was  for  Gusef,  who  was  shut  up  at 
the  time  in  the  local  prison  at  Krapi'vna,  I  harbored 
a  most  wicked  feeling  of  resentment  against  my 
father  for  paying  so  little  attention  to  me  and  the 
rest  of  those  about  him  and  being  so  absorbed  in  the 
thought  of  Gusef.  I  willingly  acknowledge  that  I 
was  wrong  in  entertaining  this  selfish  feeling.  If  I 
had  entered  fully  into  my  father's  sentiments,  I 
should  have  seen  this  at  the  time. 

As  far  back  as  1896,  in  consequence  of  the  arrest 

of  a  lady-doctor,  Miss  N in  Tula,  my  father 

wrote  a  long  letter  to  Muravyof,  the  Minister  of  Jus- 
tice, in  which  he  spoke  of  the  "unreasonableness,  use- 
lessness,  and  cruelty  of  the  measures  taken  by  the 
Government  against  those  who  disseminate  these  for- 
bidden writings"  and  begged  him  to  "direct  the  meas- 
ures taken  to  punish  or  intimidate  the  perpetrators  of 
the  evil,  or  to  put  an  end  to  it,  against  the  man  whom 
you  regard  as  the  real  instigator  of  it  .  .  .  all  the 
more  as  I  assure  you  beforehand  that  I  shall  continue 

5  Tolstoy's    private    secretary,    arrested    and    banished    in    1908. 
(Maude's  "Life.") 

368 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

without  ceasing,  till  my  death,  to  do  what  the  Gov- 
ernment considers  evil  and  what  I  consider  my  sacred 
duty  before  God." 

As  every  one  knows,  neither  this  challenge  nor  the 
others  that  followed  it  led  to  any  result,  and  the 
arrests  and  deportations  of  those  associated  with  him 
still  went  on.  My  father  felt  himself  morally  re- 
sponsible towards  all  those  who  suffered  on  his  ac- 
count, and  every  year  new  burdens  were  laid  on  his 
conscience. 

In  1908,  just  before  his  Jubilee,^  my  father  wrote 
to  A.  M.  Bodyanski : 

To  tell  you  the  truth,  nothing  would  satisfy  me  so  much, 
nothing  could  give  me  so  much  pleasure,  as  actually  to  be 
put  into  prison,  into  a  real  good  prison — stinking,  cold,  and 
"hungry."  ...  It  would  cause  me  real  joy  and  satisfaction, 
in  my  old  age,  so  soon  before  my  death ;  and  at  the  same 
time  it  would  save  me  from  all  the  horrors  of  the  intended 
Jubilee  that  I  foresee. 

And  this  was  written  by  that  same  man  who  had 
been  so  enraged  at  the  search  instituted  at  Yasnaya 
Polyana  by  the  police  in  1862,^  and  at  being  bound 
over  by  the  visiting  magistrate  to  remain  on  his  estate 
when  our  herdsman  was  gored  to  death  by  a  bull  in 

^  The  public  celebration  of  his  eightieth  birthday. 

'^  The  search  was  made  in  1862  in  consequence  of  suspicions 
aroused  in  the  minds  of  the  Police  by  the  establishment  of  the  School. 
They  apparently  thought  that  Tolstoy  was  engaged  in  some  politi- 
cal  conspiracy   with   the   village   children. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

1872,  that  both  times  he  wanted  to  leave  Russia,  and 
settle  abroad.^ 

•  •  •  •  •  ••  • 

My  father  endured  moments  of  terrible  agony  dur- 
ing my  mother's  dangerous  illness  in  the  autumn  of 
1906.  When  we  heard  she  was  ill,  all  of  us,  sons 
and  daughters,  assembled  at  Yasnaya  Polyana.  My 
mother  had  taken  to  her  bed  some  days  before  and 
was  suffering  from  excruciating  abdominal  pains. 
Professor  V.  F.  Snegiryof  came  at  our  request  and  he 
diagnosed  a  broken-down  internal  tumor.  In  order  to 
verify  his  diagnosis  he  proposed  that  we  should  sum- 
mon Professor  N.  N.  Phenomenof  from  St.  Peters- 
burg, for  a  consultation,  but  my  mother's  illness  ad- 
vanced with  such  rapid  strides  that  early  in  the  morn- 
ing on  the  third  day  after  his  arrival,  Snegiryof  woke 
us  all  up  and  said  that  he  had  decided  not  to  wait 
for  Phenomenof  because  my  mother  would  die  unless 
he  operated  at  once.  He  went  and  told  my  father. 
My  father  did  not  believe  that  an  operation  would 
do  any  good ;  he  thought  that  my  mother  was  dying, 
and  he  was  praying  and  preparing  for  her  death.  He 
believed  that  "the  great  and  solemn  moment  of  death 
had  approached ;  that  it  was  our  duty  to  submit  to  the 

^  Tolstoy  was  confined  to  his  estate  for  two  months.  The  charge 
preferred  against  him  was  of  manslaughter  by  keeping  a  dangerous 
bull ;  but  the  indictment  was  withdrawn  at  the  sessions.  Tolstoy 
said  he  would  go  to  England,  which  was  the  only  place  where  a 
man  could  be  free.     (Maude's  "Life.") 


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REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

will  of  God,  and  that  any  interference  on  the  part  of 
doctors  would  only  impair  the  grandeur  and  solem- 
nity of  the  great  act  of  death."  When  the  doctor 
asked  him  in  so  many  words  whether  he  consented  to 
an  operation  or  not,  he  answered  that  my  mother  and 
her  children  must  decide  for  themselves,  and  that  he 
washed  his  hands  of  it  and  would  not  declare  himself 
either  for  or  against  it. 

During  the  operation  he  retired  into  the  "Thicket," 
and  walked  alone  in  prayer.  "If  the  operation  is 
successful,  ring  twice  on  the  big  bell ;  and  if  not  .  .  . 
No,  do  not  ring  at  all ;  I  will  come  myself,"  he  said, 
changing  his  mind,  and  walked  slowly  away  to  the 
wood. 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  the  operation  was  over, 
I  and  my  sister  Masha  ran  out  to  look  for  him.  He 
came  towards  us,  pale  with  fear. 

"Successful !  Successful  I"  we  shouted  from  afar, 
catching  sight  of  him  on  the  edge  of  the  wood. 

"Good,  go  back,  I  will  come  in  a  minute,"  he  said, 
in  a  voice  full  of  suppressed  emotion  and  turned  back 
into  the  wood  again. 

A  little  later,  when  my  mother  had  recovered  from 
the  anaesthetic,  he  went  up  to  her  room,  and  came  out 
again  choking  with  indignation. 

"Great  Heavens,  what  a  horrible  thing!  A 
human  being  cannot  even  be  left  to  die  in  peace!" 

It  was  not  till  a  few  days  later,  when  my  mother 

373 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

was  completely  restored  to  health,  that  he  calmed 
down  again  and  ceased  from  abusing  the  doctors  for 
their  interference. 


374 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

masha's  death,     my  father's  diary,     fainting 

fits.     weakness. 

AS  I  reach  the  description  of  the  last  days  of 
my  father's  life  I  must  once  more  make  it 
clear  that  what  I  write  is  based  only  on 
the  unrecorded  memory  of  the  impressions  I  received 
in  my  periodical  visits  to  Yasnaya  Polyana.  Un- 
fortunately I  have  no  rich  shorthand  material  to  rely 
on  such  as  Gusef  and  Bulgakof  had  for  their  Mem- 
oirs, and  more  especially  Dushan  Petrovitch  Mako- 
vicky,^  who  is  preparing,  I  am  told,  a  big  and  con- 
scientious work,  full  of  truth  and  interest. 

In  November  1906,  my  sister  Masha  died  of  in- 
flammation of  the  lungs.  It  is  a  curious  thing,  that 
she  vanished  out  of  life  with  just  as  little  commotion 
as  she  had  passed  through  it.  Evidently  this  is  the 
lot  of  all  the  pure  in  heart.  No  one  was  particu- 
larly astonished  by  her  death.  I  remember  that 
when  I  received  the  telegram,  I  felt  no  surprise.  It 
seemed  perfectly  natural  to  me.  Masha  had  mar- 
ried a  kinsman  of  ours.  Prince  Obolenski;  she  lived 

1  Makovick^  was  the  doctor  who  lived  at  Ydsnaya  Polyana,  and 
accompanied  Tolstoy  in  his  final  flight. 

375 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

on  her  own  estate  at  Pirogovo,^  21  miles  from  us, 
and  spent  half  the  year  with  her  husband  at  Yasnaya. 
She  was   very  delicate  and  had  constant  illnesses. 

When  I  arrived  at  Yasnaya  the  day  after  her  death 
I  was  aware  of  an  atmosphere  of  exaltation  and 
prayerful  emotion  about  the  whole  family,  and  it 
was  then  I  think  for  the  first  time  that  I  realized  the 
full  grandeur  and  beauty  of  death. 

I  distinctly  felt  that,  by  her  death,  Masha,  so  far 
from  having  gone  away  from  us,  had  come  nearer  to 
us  and  been,  as  it  were,  welded  to  us  forever,  in  a 
way  that  she  never  could  have  been  during  her  life- 
time. I  observed  the  same  frame  of  mind  in  my 
father.  He  went  about,  silent  and  woe-begone, 
summoning  all  his  strength  to  battle  with  his  own 
sorrow;  but  I  never  heard  him  utter  a  murmur  or  a 
complaint,  nothing  but  words  of  tender  emotion. 

When  the  cofBn  was  carried  to  the  church  he 
changed  his  clothes  and  went  with  the  cortege. 
When  he  reached  the  stone  pillars  he  stopped  us,  said 
farewell  to  the  departed  and  walked  home  along  the 
avenue.  I  looked  after  him  and  watched  him  walk 
away  across  the  wet  thawing  snow  with  his  short 
quick  old-man's  steps,  turning  his  toes  out  at  a  sharp 
angle  as  he  always  did,  and  never  once  looking  round. 

My  sister  Masha  had  held  a  position  of  enormous 

2  After    her    Uncle    Sergei's    death,    "Masha"    purchased    part    of 
the  Pirogovo  estate  from  his  widow. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

importance  in  my  father's  life  and  in  the  life  of  the 
whole  family. 

Many  a  time,  in  the  last  few  years,  have  we  had 
occasion  to  think  of  her  and  to  murmur  sadly :  "If 
only  Masha  had  been  with  us.  .  .  .  If  only  Masha 
had  not  died." 

In  order  to  explain  the  relations  between  Masha 
and  my  father  I  must  turn  back  a  considerable  way. 
There  was  one  distinguishing  and  at  first  sight  pe- 
culiar trait  in  my  father's  character — due  perhaps  to 
the  fact  that  he  grew  up  without  a  mother,  or  perhaps 
implanted  in  him  by  Nature — and  that  was  that  all 
exhibitions  of  tenderness  were  entirely  foreign  to  him. 
I  say  "tenderness"  in  contradistinction  to  "feeling." 
Feeling  he  had,  and  in  a  very  high  degree. 

His  description  of  the  death  of  my  Uncle  Nikolai 
is  characteristic  in  this  connection.  In  a  letter  to  an- 
other brother  Sergei  Nikolayevitch,  in  which  he  de- 
scribes the  last  day  of  Nikolai's  life,  my  father  tells 
him  how  he  helped  him  to  undress.^ 

"He  submitted  and  became  a  different  man.  .  .  . 
He  had  a  word  of  praise  for  everybody  and  said  to 
me,  'Thanks,  my  friend.'  You  understand  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  words  as  between  us  two." 

It  is  evident  that  in  the  language  of  the  brothers 
Tolstoy,  the  words  "my  friend"  were  an  expression 

3  Nikolai  Tolstoy  died  of  consumption  while   abroad  with  Lyof 
Nikolayevitch. 

377 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  tenderness  beyond  which  imagination  could  not  go. 
The  words  astonished  my  father  even  on  the  lips  of 
his  dying  brother. 

During  all  his  lifetime  I  never  received  any  mark 
of  tenderness  from  him  whatever.  He  was  not  fond 
of  kissing  children  and  when  he  did  so  in  saying  good- 
morning  or  good-night  he  did  it  merely  as  a  duty. 

It  is  easy  therefore  to  understand  that  he  did  not 
provoke  any  display  of  tenderness  towards  himself 
and  that  nearness  and  dearness  with  him  was  never 
accompanied  by  any  outward  manifestations.  It 
would  never  have  come  into  my  head,  for  instance, 
to  walk  up  to  my  father  and  kiss  him  or  to  stroke  his 
hand.  I  was  partly  prevented  also  by  the  fact  that 
I  always  looked  up  to  him  with  such  awe,  and  his 
spiritual  power,  his  greatness,  prevented  me  from  see- 
ing in  him  the  mere  man,  the  man  who  was  so  pitiable 
and  weary  at  times,  the  feeble  old  man  who  so  much 
needed  warmth  and  rest. 

The  only  person  who  could  give  him  that  warmth 
was  Masha. 

She  would  go  up  to  him,  stroke  his  hand,  caress 
him,  and  say  something  affectionate,  and  you  could 
see  that  he  liked  it  and  was  happy  and  even  returned 
her  caress.  It  was  as  if  he  became  a  different  man 
with  her. 

Why  was  it  that  Masha  was  able  to  do  this,  while 
no  one  else  even  dared  to  try?     If  any  other  of  us 

378 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

had  done  it  it  would  have  seemed  unnatural,  but 
Masha  could  do  it  with  perfect  simplicity  and  sin- 
cerity. I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  others  about  my 
father  loved  him  less  than  Masha ;  not  at  all ;  but  the 
display  of  love  for  him  was  never  so  warm  and  at  the 
same  time  so  natural  with  any  one  else  as  with  her. 
So  that  with  Masha's  death  my  father  was  deprived 
of  this  natural  source  of  warmth  which,  with  ad- 
vancing years,  had  become  more  and  more  of  a  neces- 
sity to  him. 

Another  and  still  greater  power  that  she  possessed 
was  her  remarkably  delicate  and  sensitive  conscience. 
This  trait  in  her  was  still  dearer  to  my  father  than 
her  caresses.  How  good  she  was  at  smoothing  away 
all  misunderstandings  I  How  she  always  stood  up 
for  those  who  were  found  any  fault  with — justly  or 
unjustly,  it  was  all  the  same  to  her.  Masha  could 
reconcile  everybody  and  everything. 

When  I  heard  that  my  father  had  left  his  home  on 
the  28th  October  the  first  thing  that  occurred  to  me 
was :  "If  only  Masha  had  been  there !" 

•  ••••••• 

During  the  last  years  of  his  life  my  father's  health 
perceptibly  grew  worse.  Several  times  he  had  the 
most  sudden  and  inexplicable  fainting  fits,  from 
which  he  used  to  recover  the  next  day,  but  he  always 
lost  his  memory  for  the  time. 

379 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Seeing  my  brother  Andrei's  children,  who  were 
staying  at  Yasnaya,  in  the  zala  one  day,  he  asked 
with  some  surprise,  "Whose  children  are  these  ^" 
Meeting  my  wife  he  said:  "Don't  be  offended,  my 
dear,  I  know  that  I  am  very  fond  of  you ;  but  I  have 
quite  forgotten  who  you  are" ;  and  when  he  went  up 
to  the  zala  after  one  of  these  fainting  fits,  he  looked 
round  with  an  astonished  air  and  said:  "Where's 
my  brother  Mitenka^"  "*  a  brother  who  had  died  fifty 
years  before.  The  following  day  all  traces  of  the 
attack  would  have  disappeared. 

During  one  of  these  fainting  fits  my  brother  Sergei, 
in  undressing  my  father,  found  a  little  note-book  on 
him.  He  put  it  in  his  own  pocket  and  next  day, 
when  he  came  to  see  my  father,  he  handed  it  back 
to  him,  telling  him  that  he  had  not  read  it. 

"There  would  have  been  no  harm  in  your  seeing 
it,"  said  my  father,  as  he  took  it. 

This  little  diary,  in  which  he  wrote  down  his  most 
secret  thoughts  and  prayers,  was  kept  "for  himself 
alone"  and  he  never  showed  it  to  any  one.  I  saw 
this  book  after  my  father's  death.  It  was  impossible 
to  read  it  without  tears. 

In  spite  of  the  very  great  interest  of  these  notes 
written  so  shortly  before  his  death  I  will  not  recite 
their  substance  here.  I  should  be  sorry  to  publish 
what  my  father  wrote  "for  himself  alone."     The  fact 

*  Dimitri  Nikolayevitch. 


PRINCESS   OBOLENSKY    AND    AUNT    MASHA 


ON    THE    ESTATE    "  MESHTCHERSKOE  "    IN   JUNE,    1910 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

that  such  a  diary  was  ever  kept  at  all  speaks  abun- 
dantly for  itself. 

"The  real  diary"  .  .  .  "real"  because  the  rest 
of  the  diaries  in  which  he  wrote  down  his  abstract 
impersonal  thoughts  and  spiritual  experiences  were 
never  put  away  but  lay  openly  on  the  table.  Every 
one  could  read  them  who  wanted  to;  and  people  not 
only  read  them  but  some  of  his  "friends"  carried 
them  away  home  with  them  and  copied  them  out. 
This  was  the  cause  of  the  silent  and  stubborn  strug- 
gle which  arose  between  my  mother  and  the 
"friends,"  and  which  ended  in  my  father's  instituting 
this  new  diary  "of  his  own."  He  needed  his  own 
Holy  of  Holies  where  nobody  could  intrude;  and  this 
diary  "of  his  own"  he  kept  hidden  in  the  leg  of  his 
boot. 

The  last  time  I  was  at  Yasnaya  Polyana  was  at 
the  beginning  of  the  autumn.  My  father  welcomed 
me  cordially  and  affectionately  as  he  always  did. 
Whenever  one  of  his  sons  arrived  he  was  always 
delighted  and  always  met  us  with  some  cheerful 
greeting.  He  would  tell  me  that  he  had  lately 
dreamt  about  me,  or  that  I  was  the  very  person  he 
was  looking  out  for,  because  the  others  had  just  been 
there;  in  fact  it  always  appeared  that  one's  arrival 
had  been  timed  exactly  for  the  right  moment. 

Although  I  was  already  pretty  well  accustomed  to 

383 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

my  father's  indispositions,  I  was  particularly  struck 
by  his  feebleness  this  time.  And  not  so  much  by 
his  physical  feebleness  as  by  a  certain  air  of  self- 
concentration  and  abstraction  from  the  outer 
world. 

I  retain  a  very  sad  remembrance  of  this  interview. 
It  seemed  as  if  my  father  were  trying  to  avoid  all 
conversation  with  me,  as  if  I  had  offended  him  in 
some  way.  Besides  that,  I  was  very  much  struck 
by  the  decay  of  his  memory.  Although  I  had  been 
working  already  for  five  years  in  the  Peasants'  Bank 
and  he  knew  that  perfectly  well — so  much  so  that  he 
had  availed  himself  of  an  incident  I  had  told  him 
that  I  had  come  across  at  the  office  for  the  article 
that  he  was  writing  at  the  time — he  completely  forgot 
all  about  it  on  this  visit  and  asked  me  where  I  was 
working  and  what  I  was  doing.  He  was  very  absent- 
minded  in  every  respect  and,  as  it  were,  cut  off  from 
the  rest  of  the  world. 

It  is  curious  that  the  sudden  decay  of  my  father's 
memory  displayed  itself  only  in  the  matter  of  real 
facts  and  people.  He  was  entirely  unaffected  in  his 
literary  work,  and  everything  that  he  wrote,  down  to 
the  last  days  of  his  life,  is  marked  by  his  characteristic 
logicalness  and  force.  It  may  be  that  the  reason  he 
forgot  the  details  of  real  life  was  that  he  was  too 
deeply  absorbed  in  his  abstract  work. 

•  ••••••• 

384 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

My  wife  was  at  Yasnaya  Polyana  in  October  and 
when  she  got  home  told  me  that  there  was  something 
wrong  there:  "Your  mother  is  nervous  and  hyster- 
ical; your  father  is  in  a  silent  and  gloomy  frame  of 
mind."  I  was  very  busy  with  my  office- work  but 
made  up  my  mind  to  devote  my  first  free  day  to  going 
and  seeing  my  parents.  When  I  got  to  Yasnaya  my 
father  had  already  left  it. 


385 


CHAPTER  XXV 

MY    AUNT    MASHA    TOLSTOY 

MY  father's  only  sister,  Maria  Nikolayevna, 
was  a  year  and  a  half  younger  than  he  was. 
She  had  been  married  to  her  namesake 
and  distant  kinsman  Valerian  Petrovitch  Tolstoy, 
but  that  was  before  my  time,  and  I  only  remember 
her  as  a  widow  with  three  children,  a  son  Nikolenka 
(who  died  in  the  seventies),  and  two  daughters, 
Varya  and  Lizanka.  She  owned  part  of  Pirogovo, 
where  she  had  her  house  and  farm  two  miles  from  her 
brother  Sergei  Nikolayevitch's  demesne.  Ever  since 
I  can  remember,  Aunt  Masha  always  came  and  stayed 
every  year  at  Yasnaya  Polyana,  with  her  children 
as  long  as  her  daughters  remained  unmarried,  and 
later  alone.  The  last  twenty  odd  years  of  her  life 
she  was  a  nun  in  the  Shamardino  Convent,  where  she 
died  in  the  spring  of  1912,  at  the  age  of  eighty-two, 
a  year  and  a  half  after  my  father's  death. 

In  the  essential  features  of  her  character  my  Aunt 
Masha  resembled  my  father  in  many  ways.  She  had 
the  same  brilliant  and  original  intelligence,  the  same 
sensitiveness   to   impressions,    the   same   wonderful 

386 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

memory,  and  above  all,  the  same  austerity  towards 
herself,  admitting  of  no  compromises  or  half-meas- 
ures in  her  perpetual  striving  after  truth.  Strange 
as  it  may  seem,  he  with  his  complete  disavowal  of  all 
rites  and  ceremonies  and  she  the  strictly  orthodox 
nun  were  united  by  the  same  passionate  and  contin- 
ual search  after  God,  whom  they  both  loved  equally, 
but  whom  each  worshiped  in  a  different  way,  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  their  strength  and  understand- 
ing. 

My  father  was  always  very  fond  of  Aunt  Masha 
and  had  a  subtle  understanding  of  her  heart.  As  he 
approached  extreme  old  age  his  sentiment  of  friend- 
ship turned  into  a  profound  tenderness,  which  exhales 
from  all  his  last  letters  to  her. 

"Your  brother  Lyof,  who  loves  you  the  more  the 
older  he  grows,"  he  signs  himself  in  one  of  his  last 
letters  to  her,  in  1909. 

"Your  letter  touched  me  almost  to  the  point  of 
tears,  both  by  the  love  in  it  and  by  the  real  religious 
feeling  which  inspires  it,"  he  writes  in  another  place, 
referring  to  a  letter  of  hers  to  Dr.  Makovicky. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  when  my  father  re- 
solved to  forsake  Yasnaya  Polyana  forever,  to  leave 
"the  life  of  the  world,  in  order  to  live  out  in  solitude 
and  peace  the  last  days  of  my  life"  he  was  almost 
sure  to  go  and  see  my  Aunt  Masha,  who  was  the  only 
person  capable  of  understanding  the  crisis  he  was 

387 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

passing  through  and  who  could  weep  with  him  and 
give  him  some  peace  of  mind. 

This  is  my  Aunt  Masha's  own  description  of  her 
last  interview  with  her  brother,  given  in  a  letter  to 
my  mother  dated  April  22d,  1911. 

Christ  is  risen !  ^ 

Dearest  Sonya,  I  was  very  glad  to  get  your  letter;  I 
thought  that  after  such  sorrow  and  despair  you  would  not 
care  to  be  troubled  with  me,  and  I  was  greatly  grieved  at 
the  thought.  I  think  that,  apart  from  the  calamity  of  los- 
ing such  a  beloved  man,  you  have  other  reasons  for  being 
greatly  distressed.  You  ask  me,  what  inference  I  have 
drawn  from  all  that  has  occurred.  How  can  I  tell,  out  of 
all  the  conflicting  accounts  that  I  have  heard  from  people 
about  your  house,  what  is  true  and  what  is  false?  Still, 
I  think,  as  the  saying  is,  that  there  is  no  smoke  without  fire, 
and  there  was  probably  something  wrong. 

When  Lyovotchka  arrived  here  he  was  terribly  down- 
cast at  first,  and  when  he  told  me  that  you  had  thrown 
yourself  into  the  pond  he  wept  outright,  and  I  could  not 
look  at  him  without  tears  in  my  eyes.  But  he  told  me 
nothing  about  you;  all  he  said  was  that  he  had  come  for 
a  long  time,  and  meant  to  take  a  peasant's  cottage  and  live 
here.  It  seems  to  me  that  what  he  wanted  was  solitude; 
he  could  no  longer  endure  the  life  of  Yasnaya  Polyana — 
he  told  me  so  the  last  time  I  stayed  with  you — where  all 
the  surroundings  were  so  much  at  variance  with  his  own 
convictions;  he  merely  wished  to  settle  down  in  accordance 
with  his  own  tastes  and  to  live  in  solitude,  where  nobody 
would  interfere  with  him ;  that  is  what  I  gathered  from  his 

1  An  Easter  greeting. 

388 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

words.  Until  Sasha's  -  arrival  he  had  no  intention  of  going 
away,  but  was  preparing  to  visit  the  Opta  Hermitage  and 
wished  without  fail  to  talk  with  the  old  Confessor.  But 
Sasha  turned  everything  upside  down  by  her  arrival  the 
next  day.  When  he  went  off  that  evening  to  sleep  at  the 
hotel  he  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  going  away,  but 
said  to  me:  "Au  revoir,  I  shall  see  you  to-morrow."  Im- 
agine my  astonishment  and  despair  when  I  was  awakened 
at  five  o'clock  the  next  morning — it  was  still  dark — and 
told  that  he  was  leaving.  I  got  up  at  once,  ordered  the 
carriage  and  drove  to  the  hotel ;  but  he  had  gone  already, 
and  I  saw  no  more  of  him. 

I  do  not  know  what  had  been  passing  between  you. 
.  .  .^  was  certainly  much  to  blame  for  it,  but  there  must 
have  been  some  special  reason,  otherwise  Lyof,  at  his  age, 
could  never  have  brought  himself  to  leave  Yasnaya  Polyana 
at  night,  with  such  hurried  preparations,  in  weather  like 
that. 

I  can  well  believe  that  it  is  all  very  bitter  for  you,  dearest 
Sonya;  but  do  not  reproach  yourself;  all  this  has  undoubt- 
edly come  about  by  the  will  of  God.  His  days  were  num- 
bered and  it  pleased  God  to  send  him  this  last  trial  by  one 
of  those  nearest  and  dearest  to  him. 

That,  dearest  Sonya,  is  all  that  I  have  been  able  to  infer 
from  the  whole  of  this  astonishing  and  terrible  series  of 
events.  He  was  an  extraordinary  man,  and  his  end  has 
been  extraordinary  too.  I  hope  that  in  return  for  his  love 
of  Christ  and  his  labor  with  himself  to  live  according  to 

2  Sasha,  i.  e.,  Alexandra  Lvovna,  Tolstoy's  daughter.  She 
succeeded  her  sister  "Masha"  as  her  father's  secretary,  and  repre- 
sents the  sterner,  more  dogmatic,  side  of  Tolstoy's  doctrines,  as 
maintained  by  Tchertkof. 

2  The  gender  shows  that  the  name  omitted  is  that  of  a  man. 

389 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

the  Gospel,  He,  the  All-merciful,  will  not  turn  him  away 
from  Himself. 

Dearest  Sonya,  do  not  be  angry  with  me ;  I  have  written 
openly  all  that  I  thought  and  felt ;  I  cannot  beat  about  the 
bush  with  you;  you  are  too  near  and  dear  to  me;  and  I 
shall  always  love  you,  whatever  may  have  happened.  He, 
my  beloved  Lyovotchka,  loved  you  so  too. 

I  do  not  l.aow  if  I  shall  be  in  a  condition  to  visit 
Lyovotchka's  grave  in  the  summer;  I  have  grown  very 
feeble  since  his  death.  I  do  not  walk  at  all  now;  I  only 
drive  to  the  church,  my  one  comfort.  Come  into  retreat  at 
the  Convent ;  open  your  heart  to  the  old  Confessor ;  he  will 
understand  everything  and  restore  your  peace  of  mind.  God 
will  forgive  all  and  cover  all  with  His  love.  Throw  your- 
self at  His  feet  with  tears  and  you  will  see  how  peace  will 
establish  itself  in  your  heart.  Rest  assured  ...  all  this 
has  been  the  work  of  the  Enemy.  Good-by,  be  well  and  at 
peace. 

Your  loving  sister, 

Mashenka. 

P.  S.  I  live  with  another  nun,  but  I  hardly  ever  see  her ; 
she  is  always  occupied  with  household  duties  about  the  con- 
vent. 

Where  are  you  staying,  Sonya,  and  what  are  your  plans 
for  the  future?  Where  do  you  mean  to  live,  and  what 
address  am  I  to  send  letters  to?  Three  of  your  sons,  all 
except  Lyova  and  Misha,  have  been  to  visit  me,  one  after 
the  other;  I  was  very  glad  to  see  them  indeed;  I  am  very 
sorry  that  I  do  not  see  more  of  them.  Ilyusha's  wife 
Sonya  came ;  she  was  very  sweet. 

This  letter  is  so  full  of  goodness  and  really  sincere 
religious  feeling  that  I  should  have  been  glad  to  close 

390 


H 

O 

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a:   ►< 
>»  - 


a 

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11 

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a 
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a: 


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t^SX/v 


\ 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

my  Reminiscences  with  it.  It  is  the  best  view  that 
any  one  could  take  of  the  last  events  of  my  father's 
life. 

I  paid  Aunt  Masha  a  visit  some  little  time  after 
my  father's  funeral.  We  sat  together  in  her  com- 
fortable little  cell,  and  she  repeated  to  me  once  more 
in  detail  the  oft-repeated  story  of  my  father's  last 
visit  to  her. 

"He  sat  in  that  very  arm-chair  where  you  are  sit- 
ting now:  and  how  he  cried  I"  she  said.  "When 
Sasha  arrived  with  her  girl-friend,  they  set  to  work 
studying  the  map  of  Russia  and  planning  out  a  route 
to  the  Caucasus.  Lyovotchka  sat  there  thoughtful 
and  melancholy. 

"  'Never  mind,  papa;  it  will  be  all  right,'  said 
Sasha,  trying  to  encourage  him. 

"  'Ah,  you  women,  you  women-!'  answered  her 
father  bitterly :  'how  can  it  ever  be  all  right?' 

"I  so  much  hoped  that  he  would  settle  down  here ; 
it  would  just  have  suited  him.  And  it  was  his  own 
idea  too;  he  had  even  taken  a  cottage  in  the  village," 
Aunt  Masha  sadly  recalled.  "When  he  left  me  to  go 
back  to  the  hotel  where  he  was  stopping,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  he  was  rather  calmer.  When  he  said 
good-by  he  even  made  some  joke  about  his  having 
come  to  the  wrong  door.  I  certainly  never  could 
have  imagined  that  he  would  go  away  again  that 
same  night." 

393 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

It  was  a  grievous  trial  for  Aunt  Masha  when  the 
old  Confessor  losif,  who  was  her  spiritual  director, 
forbade  her  to  pray  for  her  dead  brother,  because  he 
had  been  excommunicated.  She  was  too  independ- 
ent-minded to  be  able  to  reconcile  herself  to  the 
harsh  intolerance  of  the  Church  and  for  a  time  she 
was  honestly  indignant.  Another  priest  to  whom  she 
applied  also  refused.  Marya  Nikolayevna  could  not 
bring  herself  to  disobey  her  spiritual  fathers,  but  at 
the  same  time  she  felt  that  she  was  not  really  obeying 
their  injunction,  for  she  prayed  for  him  all  the  same, 
in  thought  if  not  in  words.  There  is  no  knowing  how 
her  internal  discord  would  have  ended  if  her  Father 
Confessor,  evidently  understanding  the  moral  tor- 
ment she  was  suffering,  had  not  given  her  permission 
to  pray  for  her  brother,  but  only  in  her  cell  and  in  soli- 
tude, so  as  not  to  lead  others  astray. 


394 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

MY   father's   will.       CONCLUSION. 

ALTHOUGH  my  father  had  long  since  re- 
nounced the  copyright  in  all  his  works 
written  after  1883,  and  although,  after 
having  made  all  his  real  estate  over  to  his  children, 
he  had  as  a  matter  of  fact  no  property  left,  still  he 
could  not  but  be  aware  that  his  life  was  far  from  cor- 
responding with  his  principles,  and  this  consciousness 
perpetually  preyed  upon  his  mind.  One  has  but  to 
read  some  of  his  posthumous  works  attentively  to  see 
that  the  idea  of  leaving  home  and  radically  altering 
his  whole  way  of  life  had  presented  itself  to  him  long 
since  and  was  a  continual  temptation  to  him. 

This  was  the  cherished  dream  which  always  allured 
him  but  which  he  did  not  think  himself  justified  in 
putting  into  practice.  The  life  of  the  Christian  must 
be  a  "reasonable  and  happy  life  272  all  ^possible  cir- 
cumstances'''' he  used  to  say  as  he  struggled  with  the 
temptation  to  go  away,  and  gave  up  his  own  soul  for 
others. 

I  remember  reading  in  Gusef's  Memoirs  how  my 
father  once  in  conversation  with  Gusaryof  the  peas- 
ant, who  had  made  up  his  mind  to  leave  his  home  for 

395 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

religious  reasons,  said:  "My  life  is  a  hundred  thou- 
sand times  more  loathsome  than  yours,  but  yet  I  can- 
not leave  it." 

I  will  not  enumerate  all  the  letters  of  abuse  and 
bewilderment  which  my  father  received  from  every 
side,  upbraiding  him  with  luxury,  with  inconsistency, 
and  even  with  torturing  his  peasants/  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  what  an  impression  they  made  on  him.  He 
said  Yes,  there  was  good  reason  to  revile  him;  he 
called  their  abuse  "a  bath  for  the  soul,"  but  internally 
he  suffered  from  the  "bath"  and  saw  no  way  out  of  his 
difficulties.  He  bore  his  cross,  and  it  was  in  this  self- 
renunciation  that  his  power  consisted,  though  many 
either  could  not  or  would  not  acknowledge  it.  He 
alone,  in  spite  of  all  those  about  him,  knew  that  this 
cross  was  laid  on  him  not  of  man  but  of  God;  and 
while  he  was  strong  he  loved  his  burden  and  shared 
it  with  none. 

Just  as  thirty  years  before  my  father  had  been 
haunted  by  the  temptation  to  suicide,  so  now  he  strug- 
gled with  a  new  and  more  powerful  temptation,  that 
of  flight.  A  few  days  before  he  left  Yasnaya  he 
called  on  Maria  Alexandrovna  Schmidt  at  Ovsyan- 
niki  and  confessed  to  her  that  he  wanted  to  go  away. 

The  old  lady  threw  up  her  hands  in  horror  and 
said:  "Gracious  Heavens,  Lyof  Nikolayevitch, 
have  you  fallen  a  victim  to  ihat  weakness*?" 

iThat  Is,  in  his  young  days,  before  the  Emancipation  of  1861. 

396 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

When  I  learnt,  on  the  28th  October,  1910,  that  my 
father  had  left  Yasnaya,  the  same  idea  occurred  to 
me,  and  I  even  put  it  into  words  in  a  letter  I  sent  to 
him  at  Shamardino  by  my  sister  Sasha.  I  did  not 
know  at  the  time  about  certain  circumstances  which 
have  since  made  a  great  deal  clear  to  me  that  was  ob- 
scure before. 

From  the  moment  of  my  father's  death  till  now, 
I  have  been  racking  my  brains  to  discover  what  could 
have  given  him  the  impulse  to  take  that  last  step. 
What  power  could  compel  him  to  yield  in  the  strug- 
gle in  which  he  had  held  on  so  firmly  and  tenaciously 
for  so  many  )^ears?  What  was  the  last  drop,  the 
last  grain  of  sand  that  turned  the  scales  and  sent  him 
forth  to  search  for  a  new  life  on  the  very  edge  of  the 
grave*? 

Could  my  father  really  have  fled  from  home  be- 
cause the  wife  with  whom  he  had  lived  for  forty- 
eight  years  had  developed  neurasthenia  and  at  one 
time  showed  certain  abnormalities  characteristic  of 
that  malady  *?  Was  that  like  the  man  who  loved 
his  fellows  and  knew  the  human  heart  so  well  *?  Or 
did  he  suddenly  desire,  when  he  was  eighty-three,  and 
weak  and  helpless,  to  realize  the  ideal  of  a  pilgrim's 
life?  If  so,  why  did  he  take  my  sister  Sasha  and 
Dr.  Makovickf  with  him?  He  could  not  but  know 
that  in  their  company  he  would  be  just  as  well  pro- 
vided with  all  the  necessaries  of  life  as  he  would 

397 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

have  been  at  Yasnaya  Polyana.  It  would  have  been 
the  most  palpable  self-deception. 

Knowing  my  father  as  I  did,  I  felt  that  the  ques- 
tion of  his  flight  was  not  so  simple  as  it  seemed  to 
others,  and  the  problem  lay  long  unsolved  before 
me,  until  it  was  suddenly  made  clear  by  the  Will  that 
he  left  behind  him.  I  remember  how,  after  N.  S. 
Leskof's  death,  my  father  read  me  out  his  posthu- 
mous instructions  with  regard  to  a  pauper  funeral, 
no  speeches  at  the  grave  and  so  on,  and  how  the  idea 
of  writing  his  own  Will  then  came  into  his  head  for 
the  first  time. 

His  first  Will  was  written  in  his  diary,  on  March 
27th,  1895.^  It  is  printed  in  full  in  the  Tolstoy  An- 
nual for  1912,  and  I  will  therefore  give  only  some 
extracts  here.  The  first  two  paragraphs  refer  to  his 
funeral  and  the  announcement  of  his  death.  The 
third  paragraph  deals  with  the  sorting  out  and  print- 
ing of  his  posthumous  papers,  and  the  fourth,  to 
which  I  wish  to  call  particular  attention,  contains  a 
request  to  his  next  of  kin  to  transfer  the  right  of  pub- 
lishing his  writings  to  society  at  large  or,  in  other 
words,  to  renounce  the  copyright  of  them.  "But  I 
only  request  it,"  the  italics  are  mine,  "and  do  not 
direct  it.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  do.  And  it  will  be 
good  for  you  to  do  it;  but  if  you  do  not  do  it,  that 
is  your  affair.     It  means  that  you  are  not  yet  ready  to 

2  Five  weeks  after  Leskof's  death. 

398 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

do  it.  The  fact  that  my  writings  have  been  bought 
and  sold  during  these  last  ten  years  has  been  the  most 
painful  thing  in  my  whole  life  to  me." 

Three  copies  were  made  of  this  Will  and  they  were 
kept  by  my  sister  Masha,  since  deceased,  by  my 
brother  Sergei,  and  by  Tchertkof.  I  knew  of  its 
existence,  but  I  never  saw  it  till  after  my  father's 
death,  and  I  never  inquired  of  anybody  about  the 
details  of  it. 

I  knew  my  father's  views  about  authors'  copyright 
and  no  Will  of  his  could  have  added  anything  to 
what  I  knew.  I  knew  moreover  that  this  Will  was 
not  properly  executed  according  to  the  forms  of  law 
and,  personally,  I  was  glad  of  that,  for  I  saw  in  it  an- 
other proof  of  my  father's  confidence  in  his  family. 
I  need  hardly  add  that  I  never  doubted  that  my 
father's  wishes  would  be  carried  out.  My  sister 
Masha,  with  whom  I  once  had  a  conversation  on  the 
subject,  was  of  the  same  opinion. 

In  1909  my  father  stayed  with  Mr.  Tchertkof  at 
Krekshino,  and  there  for  the  first  time  he  wrote  a 
formal  Will,  attested  by  the  signature  of  witnesses. 
How  this  Will  was  written  I  do  not  know,  and  I  do 
not  intend  to  discuss  the  point.  It  afterwards  ap- 
peared that  it  was  also  imperfect  from  a  legal  point 
of  view,  and  in  October,  1909,  it  all  had  to  be  done 
over  again. 

As  to  the  writing  of  the  third  Will  we  are  fully 

399 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

illuminated  by  Mr.  F.  Strakhof,^  in  an  article  which 
he  published  in  the  St.  Petersburg  Gazette  on  the 
6th  of  November,   1911. 

Mr.  Strakhof  left  Moscow  at  night.  He  had  cal- 
culated on  Sofya  Andreyevna/  "whose  presence  at 
Yasnaya  Polyana  was  highly  inexpedient  for  the 
business  on  which  I  was  bound,"  being  still  in  Mos- 
cow. The  business  in  question,  as  was  made  clear  in 
the  preliminary  consultation  which  V.  G,  Tchertkof 
held  with  N.  K.  Muravyof  the  solicitor,  consisted  in 
getting  fresh  signatures  from  Lyof  Nikolayevitch, 
whose  great  age  made  it  desirable  to  make  sure  with- 
out delay  of  his  wishes  being  carried  out  by  means  of 
a  more  unassailable  legal  document.  Strakhof 
brought  the  draft  of  the  Will  with  him  and  laid  it 
before  Lyof  Nikolayevitch. 

"After  reading  the  paper  through,  he  at  once  wrote 
under  it  that  he  agreed  with  its  purport,  and  then 
added,  after  a  pause :  'All  this  business  is  very  dis- 
agreeable to  me;  and  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to 
ensure  the  propagation  of  my  ideas  by  taking  all 
sorts  of  measures.  .  .  .  Why,  no  word  can  perish 
without  leaving  its  trace,  if  it  expresses  a  truth  and  if 
the  man  who  utters  it  believes  profoundly  in  its  truth. 
But  all  these  outward  means  for  ensuring  it  come  only 

s  Not  to  be  confused  with  N.  N.  Strakhof. — I.  T. 
*The  Countess  Tolstoy. 

400 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  our  disbelief  in  what  we  utter.'  And  with  these 
words  Lyof  Nikolayevitch  left  the  study." 

Thereupon  Mr.  Strakhof  began  to  consider  what 
he  must  do  next,  whether  he  should  go  back  with 
empty  hands,  or  whether  he  should  argue  it  out.  He 
decided  to  argue  it  out,  and  endeavored  to  explain  to 
my  father  how  painful  it  would  be  for  his  friends 
after  his  death  to  hear  people  blaming  him  for  not 
having  taken  any  steps,  in  spite  of  his  strong  opinion 
on  the  subject,  to  see  that  his  wishes  were  carried 
out,  and  for  having  thereby  helped  to  transfer  his 
copyrights  to  the  members  of  his  family.  My  father 
promised  to  think  it  over  and  left  the  room  again. 

At  dinner  Sofya  Andreyevna  "was  evidently  far 
from  having  any  suspicions."  When  my  father  was 
not  by,  however,  she  asked  Mr.  Strakhof  what  he  had 
come  down  about.  Inasmuch  as  Mr.  Strakhof  "had 
other  affairs  in  hand  besides  the  above  mentioned 
business,"  he  told  her  "about  one  thing  and  another 
with  an  easy  conscience,"  saying  nothing,  of  course, 
about  the  chief  object  of  his  visit. 

Mr.  Strakhof  goes  on  to  describe  a  second  visit  to 
Yasnaya  when  he  came  to  attest  the  same  Will  as  a 
witness. 

When  he  arrived  "the  Countess  had  not  yet  come 
down.   ...  I  breathed  again." 

When  he  had  finished  his  business,  "as  I  said  good- 

401 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

by  to  Sofya  Andreyevna  I  examined  her  countenance 
attentively :  such  complete  tranquillity  and  cordiality 
towards  her  departing  guests  was  written  on  it  that 
I  had  not  the  smallest  doubt  of  her  complete  igno- 
rance of  what  was  going  on.  ...  I  left  the  house 
with  the  pleasing  consciousness  of  a  work  well  done, 
a  work  that  was  destined  to  have  considerable  historic 
consequences.  I  felt  only  some  little  twinge  within, 
certain  qualms  of  conscience  about  the  conspiratorial 
character  of  the  transaction." 

But  even  this  text  of  the  Will  did  not  quite  satisfy 
my  father's  "friends  and  advisers";  it  was  redrafted 
for  the  fourth  and  last  time  in  July,  1910.  This 
last  draft  was  written  by  my  father  himself  in  the 
Limonovski  Forest,  two  miles  from  the  house,  not 
far  from  Mr.  Tchertkof's  estate.^ 

Such  is  the  melancholy  history  of  this  document, 
which  was  destined  to  have  "considerable  historic 
consequences." 

"All  this  business  is  very  disagreeable  to  me,  and  it 
is  quite  unnecessary,"  my  father  said,  when  he  signed 
the  paper  that  was  thrust  before  him.  That  was  his 
real  opinion  about  his  Will,  and  it  never  altered  to 
the  end  of  his  days.  Is  there  any  need  for  proof  of 
that'?  I  think  one  need  know  very  little  of  his  con- 
victions  to  have   no  doubt   about  it.     Was   Lyof 

^  Tchertkof  had  bought  a  property  near  Yasnaya  Polyana.     The 
Will  was  written  literally  out  in  the  woods,  among  the  trees. 

402 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

Nikolayevitch  Tolstoy  likely  of  his  own  accord  to 
have  recourse  to  the  protection  of  the  law^  And,  if 
he  did,  was  he  likely  to  conceal  it  from  his  wife  and 
children'? 

If  even  an  outsider  like  Mr.  Strakhof  felt  some 
"twinges"  and  "qualms  of  conscience"  about  the 
"conspiratorial  character  of  the  transaction,"  what 
must  my  father  himself  have  felt?  He  had  been  put 
into  a  position  from  which  there  was  absolutely  no 
issue.  To  tell  his  wife  was  out  of  the  question:  it 
would  have  grievously  offended  his  "friends."  To 
have  destroyed  the  Will  would  have  been  worse  still : 
for  his  "friends"  had  suffered  for  his  principles,  mor- 
ally, and  some  of  them  materially,  and  had  been 
exiled  from  Russia.^  And  he  felt  himself  bound  to 
them.  And  on  the  top  of  all  this  were  his  fainting 
fits,  his  increasing  loss  of  memory,  the  clear  conscious- 
ness of  the  approach  of  death,  and  the  continually 
growing  nervousness  of  his  wife,  who  felt  in  her  heart 
of  hearts  the  unnatural  estrangement  of  her  husband 
and  could  not  understand  it.  And  if  she  asked  him 
what  it  was  that  he  was  concealing  from  her,  he 
would  either  have  to  say  nothing  or  to  tell  her  the 
truth.     But  that  was  impossible. 

What  was  he  to  do? 

And  so  it  came  about  that  the  long-cherished  dream 

•This  applies  to  Tchertkof  who  lived  for  years  in  England,  pub- 
lishing Tolstoy's  political  and  religious  articles. 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

of  leaving  Yasnaya  Polyana  presented  itself  as  the 
only  means  of  escape.  It  was  certainly  not  in  order 
to  enjoy  the  full  realization  of  his  dream  that  he  left 
his  home;  he  went  away  only  as  a  choice  of  evils. 
"I  am  too  feeble  and  too  old  to  begin  a  new  life,"  he 
had  said  to  my  brother  Sergei  only  a  few  days  before 
his  departure.  Harassed,  ill  in  body  and  in  mind, 
he  started  forth  without  any  object  in  view,  without 
any  thought-out  plan,  merely  in  order  to  hide  himself 
somewhere,  wherever  it  might  be,  and  get  some  rest 
from  the  moral  tortures  which  had  become  insupport- 
able to  him. 

"To  fly,  to  fly !"  he  said  in  his  death-bed  delirium, 
as  he  lay  at  Astapovo. 

"Has  papa  considered  that  mama  may  not  survive 
the  separation  from  him^"  I  asked  my  sister  Sasha 
on  the  29th  of  October,  when  she  was  on  the  point  of 
going  to  join  him  at  Shamardino. 

"Yes,  he  has  considered  all  that  and  still  made  up 
his  mind  to  go,  because  he  thinks  that  nothing  could 
be  worse  than  the  state  that  things  have  come  to 
here,"  she  answered. 

I  confess  that  my  explanation  of  my  father's  flight 
by  no  means  exhausts  the  question.  Life  is  in- 
finitely complex  and  every  explanation  of  a  man's 
conduct  is  bound  to  suffer  from  one-sidedness.  Be- 
sides, there  are  circumstances  of  which  I  do  not  care 
to  speak  at  the  present  moment,  in  order  not  to  cause 

404 


H 
C 

r 

H 

O 


O 
O 

s 

c/. 

K 
PI 

r 

M 
H 

H 

B 
PI 

O 
2; 

c 
n 

H 

C 

a 

PI 

5C 
n; 

QC 
H 


«3 

o 


REMINISCENCES  OF  TOLSTOY 

unnecessary  pain  to  people  still  living.  I  should 
like  to  think  that  some,  at  any  rate,  of  those  who 
have  been  blamed  for  their  part  in  these  transactions 
were  innocent. 

If  those  who  were  about  my  father  during  the  last 
years  of  his  life  had  known  what  they  were  doing, 
it  may  be  that  things  would  have  turned  out  differ- 
ently. 

•  •••••  •  • 

The  years  will  pass.  The  accumulated  incrus- 
tations which  hide  the  truth  will  pass  away.  Much 
will  be  wiped  out  and  forgotten.  Among  other 
things  my  father's  Will  will  be  forgotten,  that  Will 
which  he  himself  looked  on  as  an  "unnecessary, 
outward  means."  And  men  will  see  more  clearly 
that  legacy  of  love  and  truth  in  which  he  believed 
so  deeply  and  which,  according  to  his  own  words, 
"cannot  perish  without  a  trace." 

In  concluding  this  chapter  I  cannot  refrain  from 
quoting  the  opinion  of  one  of  my  kinsmen,  who,  after 
my  father's  death,  read  the  two  diaries  kept  by  my 
father  and  by  my  mother  during  the  autumn  before 
Lyof  Nikolayevitch  left  Yasnaya  Polyana. 

"What  a  terrible  misunderstanding  I"  he  said. 
"Each  was  a  martyr  to  love  for  the  other;  each  suf- 
fered without  ceasing  for  the  other's  sake;  and  then 
— this  terrible  ending!  It  was  as  if  Fate  itself  had 
stepped  in  with  some  purpose  of  its  own  to  fulfil." 

THE    END 


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